Down in the Valley
by one.long.melody
Summary: Forced to leave behind all the comforts and familiarities of Candlewick, Georgia, Kitty and Cal Dennison set out for New England, to the lakefront estate of Cal's affluent family. There, the couple must confront the demons of their pasts—and discover that not every story's ending is without a miracle.
1. Chapter 1: Bittersweet Reunion

**DOWN IN THE VALLEY**

A **Casteel Series** Fan-Fiction Written by one . long . melody

Based Upon the Novels **HEAVEN** and **DARK ANGEL** Written by V.C. Andrews

**Author's Disclaimer:** I do not own **The Casteel Series**, nor any of the series, books, characters, names, places, etcetera presented in this work, with the exception of those I created. All other series, books, characters, names, places, etcetera (including those associated with **The Logan Series**, **The Dollanganger Series** and **My Sweet Audrina**) belong to V.C. Andrews. Any recognizable quotes or passages—most notably those presented in italic format—were taken directly from the books.

The character of Janet Matthews, the television series **_Rectify_**, the town of Paulie, Georgia, Swints' Bakery, and all characters, names, places, etcetera pertaining thereto are the property of Ray McKinnon and Sundance TV.

**_The Chronicles of Narnia_** and **_The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_**, as well as the White Witch/Jadis, all characters, names, places, etcetera are the creations of C.S. Lewis.

The town of Port Charles, New York is featured in the soap opera series **_General Hospital_**, which is owned by ABC (production company) and American Broadcasting Company (distributor). (Thanks to Wikipedia for providing this information.)

**Rating:** T, but may change to M in the future (for graphic depictions of child abuse, coarse language, and some sexual content).

**Genre:** Family/Romance

**Story-Type:** Multiple-Chapter

**Summary:** Forced to abandon the comforts and familiarities of Candlewick, Georgia, Kitty and Cal Dennison set out for New England, to the lakefront estate of Cal's affluent family. There, the couple must confront the demons of their pasts—and discover that not every story's ending is without a miracle.

**A Note From the Author:** Although far from completion, _**Down in the Valley**_ is a story that was a long time coming—more than seven years, in fact. I first began writing it in the winter of 2012, during which I was dealing with a serious health issue. My life and relationships were suffering, and so was my writing. The craft of story-telling is something I have loved ever since I was a child, and once I got better, I was able to gradually ease my way back into what I am most passionate about.

It was a few weeks after my birthday in 2016 that my interest in **The Casteel Series** and all things V.C. Andrews—and, to an even greater extent, my obsession with my beloved Dennisons—made an unexpected though no less welcome return to my life. While most of the material included in **_Down in the Valley_** is fresh, much of what you will read in Chapter 2, as well as a few other lines scattered here and there in some of the early chapters, were originally written back in 2012.

During late 2016, I experienced a relapse with my illness. I was working on this story at the time, and while it was never cancer I was facing, I was able to relate the feelings and emotions attached to what I was going through to what Kitty endures.

So, in honor of the upcoming release of Lifetime's Heaven film—as well as the official trailer that I watched for the first time three nights ago and at least ten more times since—I wanted to post my latest contribution to my favorite fandom. **_Down in the Valley_** is intended as a labor of my love for Kitty and Cal Dennison, whose actions in the book(s) are equally horrible in very different ways, I know. However, from the time I was a very young child, I have been inclined to favor the villains over the heroes in certain works of fiction. I am no less biased when it comes to Cal and Kitty. In the style of Olivia Logan, my preferences as an adult have not changed one iota.

That said, I hope those of you who have read this far choose to read on. And, if you do decide to take that road, then it is my wish that you will enjoy my take on what I not so much imagined would have happened to the Dennisons, but what I _wanted_ to happen to them, had Kitty lived.

~mel

* * *

_Dedicated with affection and admiration to Christina Vining:_

_Just as our friendship has grown with each passing year, so shall your own two little miracles._

* * *

**Part One**

**CROSSROADS**

* * *

**One**

**BITTERSWEET REUNION**

_"—YOU'VE GOT TO LIVE! YOU HAVE CAL, AND HE needs you. All you have to do is will your body to fight back. Kitty, please do that for Cal. He loves you. He always has."_

Hours. So many hours since Heaven had visited me in my room at the Winnerrow Memorial Hospital. And yet…yet her words still echoed the clear and encouraging sentiments of a church choir. She'd been so kind to me, the girl I'd called "hill-scum" and treated no better than a slave. The girl I'd hit, kicked, punched, degraded, all for reasons that held no more significance for me now than they did sense.

Poor Heaven. She had done everything to get me to see her, really see her. To give her the love her own mother had never got the chance to give her. But I was stubborn, my soul consumed by the fires of betrayal and hatred, my rage blinding me to all but the one I blamed for my unhappiness: Her, Leigh Van-Something-or-Other. She'd taken my place as Luke's one and only—as his damned _wife!_ His sweet, perfect, beautiful "angel", with her fine bone structure, wide blue eyes and halo of pale blond hair. Why, just seeing the pair together, strolling arm-in-arm down the streets of Winnerrow, had dredged up every painful memory and self-doubting thought I'd carried all through my childhood. I was never pretty or thin or smart enough to please anyone. My parents hadn't doted on me, or sent me to some fancy boarding school. I didn't talk like some spoiled, over-indulged, over-privileged rich girl, and I was glad for it. Even when Luke had stopped loving me, I'd never wished to be anything like that Boston bitch. What difference would it make if I was? I'd asked myself.

Then she'd got pregnant, and I'd wanted to die. Kill myself. But suicide was a sin. My mother and father had both said so. Instead, I'd prayed to God to call me home. Except He'd never heard my prayers. Or maybe He'd only just pretended not to. Maybe He didn't want me in his kingdom, on account he was still angry with me for giving myself an abortion.

That was a long time ago. More than twenty years. I liked to think that had given God time enough to forgive me. He was letting me die, after all. My mother had said I was getting what I deserved, in return for my sins. But I knew better. I knew that by letting me die, God was showing me not just compassion, but mercy.

Seated loyally—or was it out of duty?—at my bedside was Cal, his eyes not on me, but on the floor. He was feeling guilty about something, I could tell, and I was almost certain I knew what it was. When she'd confronted Heaven about her relationship with Cal, not only had my mother spewed forth every last, ugly allegation in front of me—she'd appeared to take a perverse pleasure in the act itself. It was months before my return to Winnerrow that I'd first started to suspect there was something going on between my husband and adopted daughter. Oh, you bet your sweet life there'd been signs—I'd just chose to ignore them. Just like I'd chose to ignore the tumor growing inside me these last three years.

It was yesterday that I'd the nurses talking in the hall outside my room. Whispering, they were, in hushed undertones and quiet voices. Thinking _that_ would stop me making hide or tail of what all they were saying. Only they'd been wrong. I _did_ hear them. What was more, I'd understood each and every word they'd exchanged.

"Her husband neva leaves her side…jus sits an holds her hand. Talks t'her sometimes. I walked in yesterday an found im cryin. T'sight near broke my heart."

"Their daughter is lovely. Have you met her? Heaven, that's her name. Comes every day to see her mother. Such a sweet thing, that girl. And what a beautiful family. It's such a pity about poor Mrs. Dennison…"

"Haven't y'all heard? T'doctors think they kin save her iffen she'd jus have t'mastectomy. Thin is, she refuses. Same wid t'chemotherapy. Any otha time, I'd say people like her's downright foolish an self-absorbed. But afta seein how much her family kerrs about her…well, ya jus _know_ she's got t'be a wonderful person."

Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of all those kind words. I was particularly fond of the second nurse who'd spoken, Nurse Vining. Usually I'd prefer that Heaven be the one seeing to my every need, helping me bathe and what-not, but I was just as at ease with the nurse. Having lived the last ten years in Port Charles, New York, where she'd attended nursing school before landing a job at the local hospital, Nurse Vining had only recently made the move to West Virginia. Curious, I'd asked what the heck would make her—or anyone, for that matter—want to trade in a swank place like New York for some middle-of-nowhere hick-town like Winnerrow. When I'd commented on what a culture shock it must have been for her, she'd surprised me by saying how she'd always been very fond of Virginia and had hoped to make it her permanent home one day. "Don't tell any of the other nurses," she'd said. "They'll only laugh, think I'm being silly, and maybe I am, but…" Lowering her voice, she'd added with a trace of shyness, "Every book I've ever read that has made a significant impression on me was set in Virginia."

She'd been partly right. A year, or even just six months ago, I would have laughed out loud at such a confession, even mocked it, but the thought of doing that now, in my position, made me cower. After all, who was I to judge someone else's dreams or decisions, when I'd spent the last three years of my life locked inside a fantasy bubble, shielding myself against the cold, hard truth that my actions—or lack thereof—were slowly killing me?

"Don't ya worry none, darlin," I told Nurse Vining. "Yer secret's safe wid me. But heed my advice, an talk t'my daughta. She's a book lova, too. Might jus find ya've got some titles an writers in common."

By far the prettiest and most mild-mannered of all the nurses at the hospital, Nurse Christina Vining had hazel eyes and long brown hair that she wore pinned up under a white cap. She had a certain kind of air about her—the kind that told you right off that nursing had called to her even before she'd been born. The patience and respect she had for those she cared for were endless, but it was her young-sounding voice that had made it so easy for me to like and trust her. She and her associates were practically strangers to me, yet all three treated me with more respect and compassion than my parents or even my siblings ever had. Maisie and Danny hadn't come to see me once since I'd been admitted to the hospital. My father either. My mother had come, if only to remind me that redheads don't wear pink, an excuse she'd used so that she could personally deliver the news about Heaven and Cal's affair to me. Why, the woman had yelled so loud and raised such a raucous I was sure everyone on the floor had heard!

A knock on the inside of the open door interrupted my thoughts. While I longed to know who'd come calling, I was much too weak to roll my head over on the pillow. In the end, it was Cal who answered for the both of us.

"Nurse Vining," he said, his soft voice made hoarse from crying.

"I'm sorry to bother you," the nurse replied, "but there's a man here asking to speak with Mrs. Dennison. He says it's urgent. I just wanted to check with her first, before I let him in."

"Did he give his name?" asked Cal.

"He said his name is Luke. Luke Casteel."

Cal stared at me, his face agog, as if we'd just been informed there was a crazed killer, armed with a deadly syringe, running amuck through the hospital.

Although it was difficult, I somehow gathered enough strength to turn my head and meet the eyes of Nurse Vining, who was standing in the open doorway of my private room. "Let him in," I said, so quietly and faintly I couldn't be sure she'd heard me.

She nodded and excused herself, promising she'd come right back. She was gone less than a minute, and when she returned, she had with her an extra chair. Hauling it into the room, she placed it on floor, on the side of the bed opposite Cal, then hurried out the door again.

"Would you like me to leave," he asked me, "when they come back? I will, if that's what you want."

"No." I reached for his hand. "No. I want ya t'stay."

He didn't answer, and instead took my hand. Drawing it into his, he laid mine face up in his palm. Using the back of his thumb, he proceeded to trace slow, delicate circles around and around the center of my palm. The tender gesture was both extraordinary and unexpected, given the miles that had stretched between us these last three months. Cal had been my salvation, his compassion and understanding having loosened the stranglehold of hostility I'd held against the male race for years. Before things between us had been severed beyond repair, he would often refer to me as his "Katherine", or seduce me with love songs in the language of his Spanish kin. He'd made me feel so loved, so young and so beautiful, even when the things I did and said were hateful and ugly.

I was working up the courage to tell him I was sorry. That if by some divine intervention I survived this, I'd gladly spend my remaining days striving to put right all my wrongs. My dry, cracked lips had barely parted when I was silenced by the display of tears sliding down my husband's cheeks. Then the door opened, and Nurse Vining reappeared. Beside her stood Luke, his head bowed between his shoulders. In his arms he held a gigantic bouquet of pink roses.

My heart skipped a beat.

Had he remembered that my favorite color was pink?

"Please, be gentle with her," the nurse advised my unexpected visitor in a low voice. "She and her daughter endured quite an ordeal this morning. Mrs. Dennison's mother was here, and I guess she made some sort of big to-do over some family matter. I wasn't here when it all went down, and those who were don't know any of the details, since the door was closed the whole time. All they heard was a lot of shouting. I ran into Mrs. Dennison's mother in the hall this afternoon—she was leaving as I was arriving for my shift. She looked fit to be tied, let me tell you. I asked what was wrong, but she refused say. Just pushed past me without a word. By the time I heard what happened, she was long gone. Lucky for her, too. If she'd been anywhere in the hospital, I'd have sought her out myself. Given her a to-do of my own. I mean, the _nerve_ of her! Coming in here, upsetting her daughter and granddaughter—and for no good reason! It's disgusting." Nurse Vining shook her head. "That woman. She'd be doing this hospital and everyone in it a terrific favor if she'd just stay the hell away."

The nurse flounced out, still fuming, calling from over her shoulder that she'd find a vase for Luke's roses. I smiled to myself. Not since my beloved grandmother was still breathing had anyone cared enough to defend me against such attacks—attacks my mother and father had all but thrust upon me, making me see them not as my parents, but as villains in a fairytale. Whether their actions were verbal or physical had never made a lick of difference, either; the damage caused was always equal on both sides of the spectrum.

Head bowed between two wide shoulders, Luke shuffled slowly towards my bed. Right off I could tell that something was different about him. The transformation itself wasn't obvious because it wasn't physical; it was emotional, spiritual, psychological. If it wasn't for our star-crossed history and everything we'd ever shared, he'd have been just another handsome face in a crowd of fine-looking strangers.

Circling the bed, he proceeded to lower himself into the chair provided by the nurse. Because I didn't have strength enough to lift my head, I had to settle for turning it sideways so that I might see his face. Oh, glory be! There was no denying it! Luke Casteel was still every bit as handsome as he'd been that day, those two and a half years ago, when I'd stood with Cal in that ramshackle of a cabin up in the Willies. In that brief span of time, Luke's coal black hair had become flecked by just a smidge or two of gray. It was a difference I'd thought made him appear distinguished and that added an attractive contrast to his deep bronze complexion.

As he lay the roses carefully over my covered legs, his dark eyes swam with what I swore were tears. Clearing his throat, he spoke to me in the careful, civilized way of someone who'd had Cal's upbringing and education: "I'm sorry, Kate."

It wasn't hearing Luke call me by the name I'd last answered to when I was eighteen, before betrayal and bitterness had all but torn me from his arms. It was the two words that came before it, words that made my breath catch and my heart stop for just a second. Struck dumb, I stared at the man who'd been my best friend, my lover, my defender, and my enemy. Had I had heard him right, then? _Had_ he just spoken words I'd all but given up ever hearing him speak? Words I thought for sure I'd still be waiting to hear, long after I was dead. Only when eternity ended and started again would there be even the slightest chance that Luke Casteel would apologize for breaking the heart and shattering every promise he'd made to one simple, love-struck country girl. Promises that girl had cherished and believed in, the way a small child cherishes and believes in Santa Claus and flying reindeer.

Next thing I knew, Luke was smiling and reaching for my hand.

His touch was warm, the way I remembered it being when we were still just kids. Looking into his face now, I saw him again, that same little boy and sweet angel of mine, holding out his hand to me. Heard him telling me he was sorry for how the other kids had laughed, that time I'd got my bloody in front of everyone in gym class, and raced, sobbing and humiliated, out of the school building.

"When I heard you'd come back to Winnerrow," Luke was saying, "I knew I had to see you. Talk to you. So I went to your house." His smile fading, he lapsed into a momentary but reflective silence. "I damn near keeled over when your sister told me you were in the hospital."

Squeezing my other hand, Cal answered in a voice that cut the air like barbed wire cutting into skin: "You have our address. What's so important you couldn't have put it in a letter? Is it _another_ five-hundred dollars you're asking for? A thousand? If that's the case, then you're even _more_ despicable than I thought. As you can see, my wife is extremely ill. She's fragile, and she's vulnerable. She is in no fit condition to deal with this type of stress. Do you hear me? _None."_

Even in the face of my husband's fury, Luke's expression and manner remained placid. "That isn't why I've come, Mr. Dennison. The last thing I want is for Kate's condition to worsen. I only wish to speak with her. If anything, I am hopeful that what I have to tell her will aid in her recovery. There are things that happened long ago she isn't aware of. Things that are painful and horrible, but that she needs to know. Things she _deserves_ to know. To put them in a letter would be taking the coward's way out. And I don't consider myself a coward. Not anymore."

"Well," came Cal's terse reply, "congratulations to you."

"I won't sit here and defend myself against your allegations. It's true. I've made mistakes. I've hurt people. People I've loved, cared for. The list is endless." Sighing, Luke closed his eyes for a moment. I watched his burly chest rise and fall. "People like your wife."

"You certainly didn't seem to harbor any regrets when you walked out on her all those years ago," Cal accused.

"I _do_ regret it. I swear on my soul that I do, and on the souls of my late mother and my first wife. There just wasn't anything could be done to fix what happened. Not then. If you'll hear my side of things, then perhaps you'll understand."

Cal snorted. "Or judge."

I dug my long nails as hard as I could into his palm. Anything to stop him going off on Luke and halting what could damn well explode into an argument between two grown men. "Please," I whispered. "Please, Cal. Don't ya be mad at him. Jus be quiet an let im speak."

My words silenced him, briefly. "All right." His grip on my hand still strong, he fired back at Luke: "The only reason I don't put your head through a plate-glass window is because of Kitty. You keep that in mind, Mr. Casteel."

Clearly unintimidated by a man three times smaller than himself, Luke again turned his attention to me. I felt frozen, his eyes boring into me, appearing to see me for the first time. Lifting me up, filling me with the courage and the strength I needed to win the battle raging inside my body.

Was it a battle I hoped to win? Ten minutes ago, death had seemed a convenient solution to an inconvenient problem. But seeing Luke again, seeing how much he still cared, I reckoned I was acting hastily, even selfishly. Maybe the treatments being recommended by my doctors weren't so horrible after all. My hair would grow back, eventually, and my breast, well…well, no one ever had to know it was fake, did they?

"Kate and I knew each other when we were kids," Luke began. "We went to the same school and were inseparable. Best friends, you might say. I loved her then, same as you love her now. Her parents never approved of our friendship, and were furious when we became romantically involved. Livid when she announced she was pregnant. Always the Settertons have thought of my family as the scum of the earth. There wasn't a Casteel alive who'd ever be good enough for their daughter, is the way my own father put it to me. After doing what I did, getting her pregnant and seeing her parents' reaction, I knew what my father said was true. That's why I left Winnerrow. In my heart I believed that by staying, I'd only be hurting Kate more."

"Is there a point to this story?" Cal asked, annoyed. "Or is it just your own selfish way of unloading your conscience onto a sick woman?"

Ignoring the insult, Luke threw me a feeble glance. "I know you won't believe this, but that night…the night I said I didn't love you any more…my heart was breaking. I was hoping you'd see that. But you were so angry, so heartbroken and upset, all you could see was my betrayal. I didn't blame you. I wanted more than anything to grab you up, whisk you off to Atlanta like I'd promised. But I couldn't. If I'd done that, it wouldn't have been just you and me that suffered.

"It was your father, Porter, who convinced me to sever my relationship with you. I knew I shouldn't have let him, and I hated myself for it, but remember that I was still just a kid myself. I was scared, and he was the sheriff of Winnerrow. He had power, even though he abused it. Warned me time and again that if I didn't stay away from you, he'd make my life and my family's lives hell. When I asked through what means, he said, 'Y'all will see fer yerselves soon enough, boy, iffen ya come anywheres near my daughta agin.'"

"That's enough." Cal's spoke gruffly. "I fail to see how unearthing details of my wife's worst memories is going to bring her any kind of peace."

"It's all right, Cal," I tried to assure.

"No. It isn't. It's _far_ from all right." In my mind, I watched him turn steel-cold eyes on the person he felt it his responsibility to defend me from. "You sit there, claiming you lied to Kitty once before—how do we know you aren't lying to her again _now?"_

"Hush, Cal. Go on, Luke," I urged faintly.

Luke did go on, though with less confidence now than before. "Your father already had a hand in sending all but one of my brothers up the river to the state penitentiary. My parents were beside themselves. Already I'd realized that Porter was simply biding his time, waiting for the day Emmet and I finally slipped up. Being the sheriff of Winnerrow gave your father that privilege. So I made you hate me. I thought if I did that, then those I loved would stay forever safe. No longer would you have anything holding you to the birthplace of your nightmares. You could leave Winnerrow for good, if that's what you wanted, the way you talked about doing when we were kids. You could find yourself a decent man, a better man than me. Someone who'd love you and treat you right. Who'd give you all the things I couldn't. Not once did it ever occur to me what a terrible mistake I was making. The night I walked out on you—left you standing all alone in that motel room—hearing you scream my name through your tears, I was crying too. Grappling with the urge to turn back, knowing if I did, then I'd only be damning us both. My God." He shook his head, either unable or unwilling to believe he'd ever caused such pain in the life of someone else. Someone he claimed to have loved. "A man can apologize a thousand times, in a thousand ways, and still he won't ever be able to right his wrongs. You were my best friend, and my first love. I let you down, in the worst way, the most unforgivable way, and for that I'm truly sorry, honey. So terribly, terribly sorry. I never wanted or meant any harm to come to you, or to our child. I just needed to look into your eyes when I told you that."

Luke bowed his face into his arm and coughed. It wasn't a cough he was trying to disguise, though. It was a sob. The tears shining in his coal-black eyes as he'd riveted me with his tale of repentance had proved then and there that he wasn't the heartless monster I'd believed him to be. Guilt-ridden and remorseful, his reason for coming here this afternoon had been to deliver to me the true account of what had transpired here, in this town, all those years ago. Even as a very young child, Luke was never what you'd call an actor. The only time he'd ever lied to me was when someone with more authority and power had forced him to. But if everything he'd just told me had indeed been a lie, then why would he have waited until now, when I was on the brink of death, to unburden himself?

The answer was as simple as making hair go from brunette to blond.

He wouldn't.

Having been raised in a world where laying curled on your side in bed was just as wicked as taking the Lord's name in vain, I couldn't bring myself to question his revelation. The role my father had played in ending our relationship, the way he'd all but driven Luke and me apart—a role, I was sure, had been forced upon him by my mother,—should have enraged me. Should have made me scream at Luke to get out, just as I'd ordered Heaven to get out following my mother's confession, my angry words spurred by the secret goings on between Heaven and Cal. But I wasn't angry now. Far from it, actually. How could I feel anything but gratitude, even joy, when my dying wish had been fulfilled? I could leave this world now, with a peaceful mind and a lighter heart. I should have hated my parents for what they had done, but I didn't. Hating took energy, and I wasn't about to waste what precious energy I had left on the likes of two such despicable people.

Overwhelmed with a heady sense of relief and happiness, my tired face blossomed into a wide smile that I bestowed upon Luke. "Waited a long time t'hear ya say them words. Means so much t'me, it does. Used t'think ya didn't kerr. That ya was glad t'be rid of me. Neva thought ya'd suffered even half as much what I did. Neva thought my own kin were behind it all. That it was them made us say an do all them ugly thins t'each otha…"

"It's true," Luke said. "All those times we spent together, I never felt anything less than the greatest affection for you." The nervous edge having fled his voice, his sincerity was free to shine like a beam in the center of some vast ocean at midnight. "When I told your parents we were over, they refused to believe it. They were so wrapped up in their animosity towards the man who'd gotten their daughter pregnant through illegitimate means. They did everything in their power to drive me out of Winnerrow…out of your life. When that didn't work, they tried to bribe me. Your father offered me a train ticket to Atlanta, and I told him to forget it. You were so vulnerable—still recovering from what happened that night in the motel room. That's why I stayed. Even though we could no longer see or speak to each other, the fact that you were near, and that I knew you were safe, was comforting. I withdrew into myself, never straying far from my family's cabin. I spent my days helping Emmett and the other moonshiners with the foraging. But I never forgot you, the girl whose hair emulated the plumage of the legendary phoenix bird. When Emmett and the others would go into the valley, they would sometimes see you, and they'd tell me if you seemed all right. 'Saw t'Setterton girl t'day,' they would say. 'Seemed well enough, jist sad.' Oh, Kate. I would have moved the Blue Ridge Mountains themselves for a chance to see you again. To apologize for all I put you through. But I didn't dare. To even wish for it was a risk I was too afraid to take. You'd already suffered so much on account of me. That's when I decided something. I decided I would do as your parents wanted, and go to Atlanta. Only I would do it on my own, without them or anyone else to help me. Took me a year to build up the courage and bring in enough earnings in order to make the journey. Emmett was in jail by then, after he and another man got convicted for holding up a liquor store. I soon found a construction job in Atlanta, and while it was only temporary, the pay was good enough for my family to stay afloat for a while."

Not once did Luke ever mention Leigh or their encounter together at the train station the night he'd left Atlanta and headed back to West Virginia. Already I could feel the ice that had hardened my heart against a girl I'd spent years believing had deliberately come between me and my childhood sweetheart was beginning to thaw. I understood now that by falling for him, Leigh had intended no more harm to come to me than Luke had, when he'd told me we were over.

"By the time I returned to Winnerrow," he said, "you'd fully recovered from your ordeal. It was Rosalynn Wise who first told me you'd married a man I prayed was treating you right." He raised his eyes to Cal. "Have my prayers been answered, Mr. Dennison?"

"You're mistaken," Cal answered shortly. "That man is Jackson Wilkes, Kitty's second husband. She and I married seven years ago. Add five months, and that's how long we've been together."

Cal offered no explanation about how I'd become a divorcée four times over, nor did Luke say anything to suggest he was fishing for details. He simply nodded, like someone having been told the weather, and resumed speaking. "I passed by the nurse's station on my way here. They were talking. Saying how nice it is to see patients with families who care. Your name was mentioned. My daughter's, too." He coughed again, as if speaking Heaven's name made him physically uncomfortable. When he resumed speaking, his attention alternated between Cal's face and mine."Knowing that Kate has two guardian angels watching out for her brings me great peace."

Cal made no effort to answer, though his grip on my hand stayed strong and firm. Protective. Oh, darling, why? _Why_ did I push you away, when all this time I should have been reaching _for_ you?

With tears still present in his eyes, Luke went on to bless me with his kindest and most angelic smile. The smile I'd watched color his face whenever he'd looked at _her._ It was the same smile he'd given first to me, and that I, in all my youthful naïvity, believed would be mine forever.

"We've known each other practically our whole lives, Kate," he said. "You were never the sort to give up easy, if at all. You're brave and you're strong. You're also incredibly stubborn. All three are qualities I admire very much in you. To me, you're still that same shy, sweet, somewhat nervous girl you were at seventeen. The future might not echo our childhood dreams, but my feelings for you will always be there. When I look back on our times together—as friends, and as lovers—I do so fondly, and with great affection. And I hope that, some day, you can find it in your heart to forgive me. To think of me the way I will always think of you."

Bowing his head, he kissed my cheek. His lips swept smoothly over my skin, as gently as they did when we were still just kids, the first time he'd dared kiss me. He'd done it behind the bleachers outside school, away from prying eyes. I wasn't expecting it, and in turn the thrill of being kissed was that much more exciting, the result of which showed on both our faces afterwards.

Kneeling by my bed that night, I'd thanked God for sending me my angel. Then I'd asked Him to please make it so my parents never found out I'd let a boy kiss me, whether behind the school bleachers or elsewhere—even if all I'd received was an innocent peck on the cheek.

Luke drew his lips away then, smiling in a way that made his eyes crinkle with warmth and my own with tears. "I brought you something," he said. Slipping his hand inside the front pocket of his jeans, he eddied around, searching until his fingers closed over something. He withdrew his hand, clenched now into a loose fist, and held it out to me. His fingers uncurled, revealing a polished stone about the size of a silver dollar. The stone was a mix of yellow and brown, making me consider the edges of my granny's homemade cornbread. "I gave this to you," he told me, "on the eve of your twelfth birthday. You cherished it then. Said you'd keep it with you always."

My eyes widened. "How'd _ya_ end up with it?"

Darkness flooded his face. "You gave it back to me. That night."

He was being nice. I'd _thrown_ that stone at him, said I'd lied. That it was stupid, ugly, and meant absolutely nothing to me. I'd stood there, in the middle of that motel room, with all its filth and dinginess, my fists clenched so tight at my sides that when I looked later, my palms were nicked red from where my nails had cut into them. Tears of rage streaming down my face in long, thick streaks, I'd screamed at him: "'AIN'T NEVA BE NOTHIN BUT GODDAMN HILL-SCUM TRASH! Ya hear me, big-shot? Ya listenin? Then listen good! Iffen y'all dropped dead t'night, still it wouldn't make me shed even one tear!'"

Not.

One.

Single.

Tear.

"Where'd ya find it?" I asked, shame in my voice.

"I was cleaning out the old cabin," he said, "when I came across it."

"Memba a time when I wouldn't go nowheres widout that ole stone. Believed what ya said when ya done gave it t'me. That no matta where I went, or what all I did, it'd keep me safe. Ya done tole me it'd give me luck an confidence." Smiling a weary smile, I added in a voice barely above a whisper: "An it did, Luke. It did, it did…"

"I know it did, honey. That's why I'm giving it back to you." With that, he pushed the stone into my limp hand. His eyes lifted, and it was to Cal he spoke: "You look after her now, you hear? Treat her right. Love her. Protect her. Make her see that not every man who walks the earth is the Devil in disguise."

"He done that already." With renewed strength, I managed to roll my head over on the pillow and level my gaze with Cal's. His olive complexion had taken on a blotchy redness as huge, fat tears sprang from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks. Wriggling my hand free of his, I held mine up, and very gently I stroked his sweet, lovable face. Feeling the warm tears come away on my fingertips I, too, began to cry. "Oh, Cal. What a fool I've been…not t'see it till now…now, when it's too late…"

"But it isn't too late! It's _never_ too late!" He seized my hand, pressed it to his cheek. "Tell me what you see."

Losing the battle with my tears, I replied with conviction, "See that I love ya. That I always _have_ loved ya. Know it didn't seem that way most times. But it's true, Cal. It is. Jist wanted t'tell ya, before—"

"Before the nurse comes back," Luke interrupted quickly. "When she does, tell her you've changed your mind. That you've decided to have the operation after all."

How did he know about the mastectomy? Who had told him? One of the doctors? A nurse? Could it have been Nurse Vining? Shifting my head to the right, I stared at Luke, my eyes pleading with him to explain.

Reading my expression, he smiled. "Your sister, Maisie, told me. I didn't think she would, considering, but she was all too willing. Said she feels guilty for not making more of an effort to get to know you over the years."

It was hard to imagine my seventeen-year-old sister saying something like that—and to _Luke,_ of all people! Maisie didn't know him, had never even met him, far as I knew. So I'd took for granted that any opinions her and Danny had about the Casteels would mirror the prejudices of our parents.

"What else she tell ya?" I asked.

"That she wants to try and be a better sister. She was crying when I turned up on your parents' porch. When I asked what was wrong, she refused to say. I just figured that what ever it was had to do with you."

That right there confirmed my suspicions: that Luke _was_ in the dark about the events involving his daughter and my husband. Not to mention it explained Maisie's state of mind when he'd shown up at the house. She must be feeling guilty, was my reasoning. As awful as she was, I couldn't imagine my mother would have come down on my sister for the same reasons she had my daughter and husband. What was it, that old saying? Shoot the messenger? No. My mother was lacking in a lot of human qualities, that much was true—love, empathy, trust, etcetera—but a shortage of common sense wasn't one of them. She could spot her enemies a mile away or less, which was why she'd been so quick to judge Cal. From the moment I'd told my parents of the new man in my life, neither had liked him, a decision they'd made even before I'd introduced them, and afterward only became that much more intolerant of him. Calling him a gold-digger behind his back, then accusing me of being reckless and stupid for accepting his marriage proposal. Even after ten years, my parents still refused to accept my marriage to my husband. Now that they'd uncovered a legitimate reason to disapprove, the idea that they'd ever let up was as far-fetched as my belief that I'd be forever invincible.

Then there was Heaven.

In the eyes of Porter and Reva Setterton, my daughter would never be any better or more admired than her birthfather.

Now that news of Cal's betrayal of me and my parents' threats against Luke were out, I was amazed that my former lover had had guts enough to show up at the house. When I confessed to Luke my worries about this, he told me it was all all right, that my parents hadn't been there. "Neither was your brother," he added with what sounded like relief.

"Ya mean Danny? Oh. Ya don't gots t'worry none about him. He's all right. A little dim, but harmless as a garter snake."

"He's been to see you?"

"No." I flicked my eyes away, suddenly hurt. Not so much by Luke assuming that my brother would actually pay a visit to his dying sister in the hospital, but by the realization of just how little I mattered to my family. Maisie cared, I guessed, even though she hadn't done much yet to show it. "Ain't none of em have. Cept fer my motha. But only t'remind me what a burden I am."

Luke's eyes narrowed. "If I'd been here, there's no shortage of words I'd have loved to throw at her."

"Wouldn't of made no difference. She still woulda made ya feel no bigga than a beetle."

"I don't care. I'd still have fought for you."

I smiled. It was true. "Heaven ain't here now. But iffen ya'd kerr t'wait, y'all kin catch her when she visits lata."

"I actually need to be going in a minute," Luke said, "otherwise I would." Was it my imagination, or did I detect a note of regret in his words? "But I'd like to come again, in a few days. Stay longer. If it's all right with you."

"Course it's all right."

He nodded. Then, as if seeking further confirmation, he looked at Cal. "And with the permission of your husband."

Cal returned the nod, or gave some sort of silent approval, because I saw Luke smile.

Depending on whether I decided to go through with the operation, I wondered if he planned to drop by either before or after, but felt the subject was too serious not to run by Cal first. My husband, and the man I knew now I'd loved all along. "I'd like that," was my answer. "An I'll talk t'Heaven. Make sure she's here fer y'all's next visit."

"Thank you," Luke said. "I'd appreciate that. Incidentally, if you wouldn't mind, I was hoping you'd give her a message for me."

"What sort of message?" Cal interjected.

"That I'm sorry. I can't change the past, or take away the pain she and other members of our family have suffered. But I'd like to try—as hard as any man who loves his children can."

"What ya gonna do?" I asked.

"It's what I've already done, Kate. I've remarried, and make my living doing what I always dreamt of doing, back when you and I were kids. I appreciate all you and your husband have done for my daughter. I'd never try to take her from you. But I'd like a chance to be a real father to her—that is, if she'll allow it. I want to offer her a place to live, for how ever long you're in the hospital. My wife and I reside here, in the valley, in a cabin I've built. It's closer to the hospital than your parents' house, so Heaven will be able to visit you as often as she does now."

Luke's eyes were full of kindness, his smile the warmest I'd seen in years. Would he still be smiling if he learned what all I'd done to Heaven? What Cal had done? No, I told myself firmly. No, of course he wouldn't. He'd turn his back, and walk away, just like he did before.

"What about your oldest son?" asked Cal. "Tom? Doesn't he live right here, in Winnerrow? Suppose Kitty and I do agree to let Heaven come and stay with you. How is Tom going to feel, when he discovers that one of his siblings has been reunited with you, their father—and he's still living with the man _you_ sold him to?"

In spite of Cal's harsh accusations, Luke still managed to hold a civil tongue. "You have every reason to think the worst of me, Mr. Dennison. I've no right to discredit you, or anyone else, for that. A man is only as good as his word, after all. It was my wife who first suggested I reach out to my children. I've spoken with Buck Henry, the man who bought Tom. He's agreed to let me have my son back, in exchange for the price Henry paid for him." Frowning, Luke seemed to consider something, then went on. "I have yet to contact the families of my other three children, however. Part of me wants to. Then there's the part that tells me to leave well enough alone. My middle daughter, Fanny, lives in town, with Reverend Wise and his wife, Rosalynn. Then there are my two youngest, Keith and Jane—called 'Our Jane' by her brothers and sisters. The pair are being raised together, in Maryland, where they are deeply loved and well cared for by their adoptive parents." A look of sorrow flitted its way over the surface of Luke's face at the mention of Keith and Jane, who even now were still just babies. "What right do I have to interfere," he finished, "when I know my kids are happy, right where they are?"

"Keith…an Our Jane," I whispered. They were names I'd heard Heaven speak a thousand times before, always with a brightness in her eyes and a trace of longing in her voice. I'd even tried to make her believe I'd known their whereabouts, just so I could throw the pretty bride doll that had looked so much like her real mother in the fireplace and watch it burn.

_("…STOP that cryin! It were only a doll! Only a doll!")_

Yes. Only a doll. And Luke had been only a boy. The boy I had loved. The boy my parents had torn mercilessly from my arms, just as I'd torn Heaven's treasured doll from hers.

"Don't worry," I assured Luke. "We'll be sure t'pass along yer message t'Heaven."

"Thank you. I can't tell you what it means to me that you'll do that. Now, I have just one other favor to ask. Then I promise I'll go, and let you rest."

"What's on yer mind?"

Reaching into his back pocket, Luke produced a small envelope that he handed to me. "I had planned to give this to Heaven when I saw her here today. Inside is a plane ticket to Boston, where her mother's parents live. I wouldn't have done this, except my father says Heaven is determined to go there herself one day. I've contacted her grandparents, and they're prepared to welcome her. By giving you this ticket, I'm not demanding that you see she uses it. I'm simply asking that you do what you feel would be in her best interests. If you don't think she should go, then by all means, tear up the ticket. You have my permission."

"Why is it so important that Kitty and I have a say in what Heaven's future should be?" asked Cal. _"You're_ her father. I should think that decision would be up to you."

"Of all the women I have ever loved," Luke said, "it was Kate who wanted more than anything to be a mother. Ever since we were kids. When I took her dream away, I swore to myself I'd find some way of making it up to her."

"So you gave her Heaven."

"If it wasn't for my previous arrangement with the Goodwins—the other couple you met at the cabin that afternoon—I'd have driven Heaven to Georgia myself. As it turned out, I had told the Goodwins that if she didn't decide to go with them, then I would give them back the five-hundred dollars, which they'd already paid me in advance—as well as another five-hundred. I love my children very much, Mr. Dennison. I wanted to do all I could to ensure that they grew up as happy and healthy as possible."

"I never realized the lengths you'd gone to," Cal said, amazed, his former opinion of Luke seeming to sway a bit. "Not only for the sake of your own children, but for Kitty."

"All I ever wanted was her happiness. When I leave here today, it will be in the company of all my most cherished memories of her…and in knowing that my one wish for her has come true."

The smile that sprang to Luke's face seemed to soar high above my head like a bird taking flight, its wings bearing the hope I felt fill my heart. As it was, I still clung to uncertainty and fear when it came to my future with my husband. How it all turned out depended on one thing: my will to survive. If living was what I truly wanted, then I was going to have to follow Heaven's advice, and fight for it, wasn't I? What ever happened after that would be up to Cal. I loved him dearly, but I wouldn't stop him if he walked away from me after all this was over. He was twenty-seven, too young to give up his life and everything it had to offer in order to care for his ailing wife. A wife, I thought with a stab of regret, who'd never appreciated how truly wonderful he was, or noticed any of the countless, heartfelt ways he'd gone about showing and reminding me all I was to him.

I was going over in my mind what all I could do to at least _try_ to mend the disaster I'd made of my marriage, when Luke rose from his chair. He was sorry, he said, but really he had to get going now. He'd promised his wife, who was out shopping, that he'd retrieve their one-year-old son, Drake, from the sitter's. "Take care, Kate," Luke said. "The next time we see each other, I pray it will be under a more positive set of circumstances."

Too weak to watch Luke round the bed, I let my focus fall instead to his now empty chair and small dresser sitting behind it. I listened to him exchange friendly good-byes with my husband, their voices consequently followed by Luke's footsteps retreating back across the polished tiles. I heard the door open, and I called out to Luke softly:

"Before ya go, will y'all do me a fava?"

"If it's within my power, then yes." Silence, and then: "What is it you need me to do?"

"Write t'yer daughta. Tell her all t'thins ya done tole us here t'day. Think they'd mean more iffen they come from ya steada me."

In a flash, Luke had bounded back across the room to my side. Lowering himself into the same chair he'd occupied moments earlier, he said, "Do you know where I can find some paper? Maybe an envelope?"

"I think I saw a notepad and some envelopes inside this drawer here," Cal said, referring to the bedside table at his right.

"On second thought," Luke said, "I think I'll write a separate note to slip in with the plane ticket." He was still talking when I heard Cal yank open the table's drawer. "There are things I planned to tell her I'd have preferred to say in person."

"Don't ya be frettin none ova that," I said. "Won't matta how or what ya says, so long as it's from yer heart."

As Luke got to work on his letter-writing, I was left to devote myself to my husband. Cal tightened his hand around mine, a gesture I found to be both soothing and reassuring. He'd always had something of a sixth sense when it came to understanding other people's feelings. The oldest of six kids in a family of devout Catholics, Cal's mother believed her son's ability to be a gift from God. Cal had only to touch somebody's hand, or even just sit beside them, so that what ever was troubling them would fade like clouds in the sky after a storm. But it was his willingness to accept and respond to people just as they were, without judgment or expectation, that had first attracted me to him. And I knew, as I found myself in awe of that handsome, tear-stained face, that it was _Cal_ I loved, and no one else.

The realization that I was responsible for the sadness echoing like search lights in those loving brown eyes forced me to turn my face away in shame. Whether by convenience or pure accident, my gaze fell once more to Luke. He had finished his letters, and was sliding the second into the little envelope containing Heaven's plane ticket when a thought struck me.

"Hold on a sec," I said. "There's still one last thin ya gots t'put in that letta t'yer daughta."

Pausing, Luke raised his eyes to mine. His hand with the letter hung just inches above the open flap of the envelope.

"That couple from Maryland. T'ones done bought Keith an Our Jane. What's their name? Their last name? Write it. An t'address where they all be livin. Write that, too. Please, Luke. Iffen ya meant even _half_ of what ya tole me before, y'all will do what I'm askin."

Staring out across the room, Luke appeared to have lapsed into a state of deep reflection. Finally, he picked up the pen he'd laid on the swivel tray between my bed and the bathroom door. He went on to jot something down at the bottom of the paper. The pen failed to produce any ink, prompting him to give it a forceful shake. When that proved unsuccessful, he fished from his pocket a stubby pencil. It had teeth marks in it and a ground out eraser, but it served its purpose well, judging by his feverish scribbling. Once he'd finished, he refolded the note and slipped it into the envelope alongside the plane ticket.

"Give it here," I ordered, "an t'otha one, too. Gotta keep em both safe fer when Heaven comes."

Without a word, Luke handed me the small envelope, and Cal the slightly larger one. I smiled to see Heaven's name written in Luke's graceful, precise hand on the back of the larger envelope.

"Ya always did have t'neatest, nicest handwritin." My praise was tainted by the shards of resentment that had clouded my childhood and helped fuel my pathetic self image. "Was always jealous of ya fer that."

Following a meek nod, Luke stood to go, promising he would pay me another visit within the coming days. Bending low over the bed, he planted a silent kiss on my forehead. He straightened up, and stretched his burly right arm across me to shake the hand of Cal, who surprised everyone by accepting the hand being offered him.

"That was a very kind thing you did," Cal said, after Luke had gone and we were alone. "Convincing Heaven's father to write the names of Keith and Our Jane's adopted parents in that note."

"It jus ain't right," I said. "Keepin yer daughta from t'sista an brotha she helped rear. Besides, afta all I done, I owe it t'Heaven t'try an set thins right."

Cal didn't answer, but I could tell by the thoughtfulness as it settled in his damp eyes me that he agreed with me. So Heaven would be sure to see it when she walked in, I set the envelope with her name on it down on the side of the bed facing the door. I was less confident about the second envelope. She was only seventeen. Too young to go off on her own to a big, far-away city like Boston. Cal seemed to sense my anxiety, for he plucked the envelope from between my fingers and slid it beneath the pillow.

"You heard what Luke said," he reminded gently. "We are under no obligation to fulfill any promises. It's up to us to decide whether or not Heaven ever reads this note."

"Yeah." Settling back against the pillows, I closed my eyes. I was so tired. "Luke were nice, though, weren't he?" I murmured drowsily. "Couldn't believe my eyes when I looked an seen him standin in t'doorway with Nurse Vinin. An he sounded sorry, really sorry, didn't he, Cal?"

"He did. Actually, I believe the word that best describes Luke Casteel is 'humbled'."

Opening my eyes, I ogled him in confusion. "What's that word mean? Humbled?"

"Simply put, he's ashamed of himself, and the pain you endured on his behalf."

I was too exhausted to remind Cal that not everything that had happened was because of Luke. "That's what I thought, too," I said, meaning this and every word that followed. "That he were ashamed. Even though it weren't his doin so much it was my ma an pa's, he done still apologized. Took responsibility. Meant a lot he'd do that, it did."

"I know it did, sweetheart. And I'm so glad it gave you the closure you've sought all these years. But you should sleep now. Heaven will be here soon, and you do want to be rested for her visit."

"Will ya stay wit me?"

The tension I was starting to think was well on its way to becoming a permanent fixture to Cal's once happy face dissolved, giving rise to a contented smile. "I'll be right here when you wake up," he promised.

Feeling the stress flow out and away from my aching, ravaged body was like watching water spiral its way down a drain. No longer feeling weighted down by my fear and depression, I had no trouble letting my eyes slide closed. Running my thumb over the stone Luke had placed in my hand, I concentrated on its smooth texture, inviting the image of two young children to fill my memory and heal my broken heart…

* * *

_"What t'heck… What. Is. _THAT?" _Crouching ever lower behind the bleachers overlooking the school's deserted baseball field, I inspected the small object in Luke's hand. Squinting through the fading summer light, I asked, "Is it a bug?" I backed away, suddenly terrified. "Kinda looks like it t'me. Iffen it is…iffen y'all's jus wantin t'skerr me…"_

_Luke laughed, and I could swear my face turned the same color my father's nose did every time he drank more than two glasses of brandy. "Ya sure are a_ girl, _Katherine Setterton," Luke taunted. "Ain't no bug. This here's a stone—an a might pretty one, don't ya think? Found it when Emmett an Clay brung me fishin down by t'crick. Took it home an showed it t'my pa. He done tole me it were called tiga's eye. Says whoeva has it stays safe an feels brave." He grinned triumphantly. "So's I'm givin it t'_ya, Kate. _Happy birthday."_

* * *

When I opened my eyes a short time later, it was Cal I saw first, sitting right where he swore he would be, in the chair next to my bed. So that I wouldn't trigger any pain or discomfort in my head or neck, I was slow in the way I glanced around the room. The pink roses Luke had brought me had been neatly arranged in a crystal vase and placed on the nightstand beside my husband. The love in his eyes mingled with the glistening of fresh tears, making his eyes appear more gold than brown. I smiled at him. Smiling back, he gently rubbed my palm with the tops of his fingers.

Oh! Had his hand stayed holding mine, all this time?

"Hey there, stranga," I whispered.


	2. Chapter 2: Give Unto Us Salvation

**DOWN IN THE VALLEY**

A **Casteel Series** Fan-Fiction Written by one . long . melody

Based Upon the Novels **HEAVEN** and **DARK ANGEL** Written by V.C. Andrews

**Author's Disclaimer:** I do not own **The Casteel Series**, nor any of the series, books, characters, names, places, etcetera presented in this work, with the exception of those I created. All other series, books, characters, names, places, etcetera (including those associated with **The Logan Series**, **The Dollanganger Series** and **My Sweet Audrina**) belong to V.C. Andrews. Any recognizable quotes or passages—most notably those presented in italic format—were taken directly from the books.

The character of Janet Matthews, the television series **_Rectify_**, the town of Paulie, Georgia, Swints' Bakery, and all characters, names, places, etcetera pertaining thereto are the property of Ray McKinnon and Sundance TV.

**_The Chronicles of Narnia_** and **_The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_**, as well as the White Witch/Jadis, all characters, names, places, etcetera are the creations of C.S. Lewis.

The town of Port Charles, New York is featured in the soap opera series **_General Hospital_**, which is owned by ABC (production company) and American Broadcasting Company (distributor). (Thanks to Wikipedia for providing this information.)

**Rating:** T, but may change to M in the future (for graphic depictions of child abuse, coarse language, and some sexual content).

**Genre:** Family/Romance

**Story-Type:** Multiple-Chapter

**Summary:** Forced to abandon the comforts and familiarities of Candlewick, Georgia, Kitty and Cal Dennison set out for New England, to the lakefront estate of Cal's affluent family. There, the couple must confront the demons of their pasts—and discover that not every story's ending is without a miracle.

**A Note From the Author:** Although far from completion, _**Down in the Valley**_ is a story that was a long time coming—more than seven years, in fact. I first began writing it in the winter of 2012, during which I was dealing with a serious health issue. My life and relationships were suffering, and so was my writing. The craft of story-telling is something I have loved ever since I was a child, and once I got better, I was able to gradually ease my way back into what I am most passionate about.

It was a few weeks after my birthday in 2016 that my interest in **The Casteel Series** and all things V.C. Andrews—and, to an even greater extent, my obsession with my beloved Dennisons—made an unexpected though no less welcome return to my life. While most of the material included in **_Down in the Valley_** is fresh, much of what you will read in Chapter 2, as well as a few other lines scattered here and there in some of the early chapters, were originally written back in 2012.

During late 2016, I experienced a relapse with my illness. I was working on this story at the time, and while it was never cancer I was facing, I was able to relate the feelings and emotions attached to what I was going through to what Kitty endures.

So, in honor of the upcoming release of Lifetime's Heaven film—as well as the official trailer that I watched for the first time three nights ago and at least ten more times since—I wanted to post my latest contribution to my favorite fandom. **_Down in the Valley_** is intended as a labor of my love for Kitty and Cal Dennison, whose actions in the book(s) are equally horrible in very different ways, I know. However, from the time I was a very young child, I have been inclined to favor the villains over the heroes in certain works of fiction. I am no less biased when it comes to Cal and Kitty. In the style of Olivia Logan, my preferences as an adult have not changed one iota.

That said, I hope those of you who have read this far choose to read on. And, if you do decide to take that road, then it is my wish that you will enjoy my take on what I not so much imagined would have happened to the Dennisons, but what I _wanted_ to happen to them, had Kitty lived.

~mel

* * *

_Dedicated with affection and admiration to Christina Vining:_

_Just as our friendship has grown with each passing year, so shall your own two little miracles._

* * *

**Part One**

**CROSSROADS**

* * *

**Two**

**GIVE UNTO US SALVATION**

SIGHING IN DEFEAT AND FRUSTRATION, I TOSSED THE LETTER onto the kitchen table. I leaned back in my chair, mindful of the front legs levitating off the floor as the back of my head made contact with the wall. Closing my eyes, I let my arms fall limply against the sides of the chair before letting go another dismal sigh.

All day I had managed to avoid telling Kitty—who'd spent most of the morning and majority of the afternoon asleep upstairs—about the most recent letter we'd received on behalf of the Winnerrow Memorial Hospital. It had arrived just this morning, tucked between a K Mart circular and advertisement for a new tire store opening up in the neighboring town of Paulie, Georgia.

Like locusts, my wife's bills arrived almost daily, intent to wreak havoc on our lives and bank account. This sort of thing had been occurring at least four times a week—even on Saturdays—for a solid eighteen months! Several times I had written and telephoned the hospital, insisting—sometimes yelling—that reimbursement was not an option at the moment.

"My wife is ill," I had said during my most recent conversation with the director of Winnerrow Memorial Hospital, "and is no longer employed. I've had to quit my own job to stay at home with her because we can't afford to hire a nurse." What other choice did we have? We were the only family in Candlewick who'd had to resort to selling their home when the bank threatened to seize it.

Kitty's emotional state, volatile as it was known to be, had taken on a whole new—though no less disturbing—turn, following the surgery to remove her right breast. Now, instead of violent mood swings, she was prone to fits of sobbing that could go on for hours.

Bearing both this as well the possibility that she may have woken and could be standing just feet away on the living room stairs in mind, I resorted to whispering into the mouthpiece. "Yes," I replied, when the droning, businesslike monotone of the director informed me without a trace of sympathy that this was my last chance. "Yes. I am aware that we've exhausted our extension by six months. But…"

But nothing. Failing to produce the impossibly large sum he was demanding would result in immediate legal action. Having done my damnedest to hold onto the charming pink and white house that Kitty loved so dearly, I was nowhere close to giving up. Yet. Her ordeal had been a long and painful one, and only within the last couple of weeks had she begun to show signs of improvement. I feared that to add to her stress now would be like kicking a wounded animal.

Today was the first Saturday in a year and a half that our mail had not included a bill from Winnerrow Memorial Hospital. In its place was an envelope whose contents was anything but ordinary. In fact, it was downright unsettling.

**_Dear Mr. and Mrs. Calhoun R. Dennison [the letter read]:_**

**_In response to your failure to pay Winnerrow Memorial Hospital all of the necessary funds in return for the hospitalization AND surgical treatments of KITTY DENNISON, between the months of JUNE 1964 and NOVEMBER 1964, you are hereby being sued in the amount of FIVE-THOUSAND DOLLARS AND SEVENTY-THREE CENTS by the state of West Virginia on behalf of Winnerrow Memorial Hospital. Please contact me by MAY 31, 1965 to schedule a court date. Should you decline to do so, then further legal action will immediately be taken against you._**

**_Sincerely,_**

**_Mr. Owen Pennington, Director of Winnerrow Memorial Hospital_**

Printed beneath was the contact information for Pennington's private office in Amherst, Virginia, and below it his home address and telephone number. Sitting forward in the chair, I planted my feet firmly on the floor and began to drum my fingers anxiously against the surface of the wooden table-top. The habit was one I'd picked up during childhood, my way of coping with my father's unpredictable and explosive temper. For once, though, the rhythm of my fingertips tapping against Brazilian rosewood did little to relieve my distress. The consequences of the worst crisis to befall Kitty and myself since her cancer diagnoses less than a year ago invaded my mind and overrode all logic. The terror I experienced now, in the immaculate kitchen of our perfect home, was that of someone drowning. Trying to keep their head above water in a sea where hopes were lost and dreams destroyed. I had done all that I could for Kitty—for us!—only to have everything we'd worked so hard for be snatched away, like candy from a child's hand.

Dear God! Could _nothing_ save us now?

Feeling like the protagonist in a biblical tale of divine intervention, my focus drifted to the telephone attached to the wall. Unable to take my eyes from that blinding burst of hot pink set against snowy white, I let down my guard, and allowed a myriad of thoughts to tear through my brain like a nor'easter through a seaside town.

Suppose I did decide to call my parents. What would I say to them? What would they say to me? When asked why I'd deserted them and my sister, how would I respond? With the truth? Any honest answer was out of the question. There was nothing I could say that wouldn't provoke my father's wrath, or worse, add to the pain I'd already caused my dear mother and sister. Did I really have it in me to reach out to my family now, after living the last eight years in silence? If I did manage to muster up enough courage, there would be questions I'd be expected to answer, slews of them, not to mention accusations. In the end, it would all come together, and stir within the hearts of us all feelings of unease, remorse, even resentment. The thought made my stomach tense, and suddenly, the prospect of sitting still became intolerable. I rose, and hurried to the opposite side of the kitchen.

Though I did consider it, I stopped just short of picking up the telephone. There was another, more pressing matter at hand. A silent voice that called to my heart like an instrument calling to talented fingers.

I left the kitchen and strode slowly into the dining room, all the way through to the living room. I continued on, moving listlessly in between the wide space separating the television from the couch and coffee table. En route to the white carpeted stairway, I broke stride in favor of observing one of Kitty's two elephant end-tables placed beside the right arm of the couch. Seeing the table filled me with a mix of despair and guilt so strong that I looked away and charged the remaining paces to the stairs. I seized hold of the balustrade, intent to ascend, then stopped. With my right foot hovering inches above the first step and my left planted firmly on the floor beside it, I took that moment to gaze around the room, and absorb all of the things Kitty _used_ to be. Her 'creations'—as she'd been fond of calling them—still inhabited every spare corner of our house (the elephant end-table being one of them). It wasn't all that long ago that I'd barely been able to tolerate the sight of all those goggle-eyed, too-bright creatures. Not even the one Kitty had transformed into a flower pot—a grinning blue frog named to honor an actor whose surname happened to be the same as my Christian one, and whose work had infatuated Kitty since long before he'd given her the pleasure of cutting his thick, wavy locks—was capable of eluding my scorn. Now, each and every time I stopped to gaze upon the things I'd once considered monstrosities, what I felt was an overwhelming sense of sadness. Sadness for the loss of an exuberant passion; a passion that had brought joy and a childlike sparkle to eyes the color of seawater. It was here, in the heart of Kitty's abandoned world, that I began to understand what it was she'd been striving for all these years. Her reason for creating and filling our home with these objects was her way of filling the childless hole in her poor, broken heart.

Gripping ever tighter the balustrade, I commenced my ascent, ignoring now the feeling of those hundreds of bulging eyes on my back. Their fluorescent owners leering, judging, all whispering together in the harsh voice of my mother-in-law. Those same unfavorable—yet perfectly justifiable—words that had been permanently imbedded upon my memory and my conscience:

_"__Knew it! Knew it soon as Katie brung ya home ya weren't no good! Knew ya weren't nothin but a low-down, gole-diggin scumbag! Ya kin thank Maisie fer callin ya out. Saw ya wid that Casteel trash, she did. Well, what ya waitin fer? Get out! _OUT!_ An take yer little tramp wid ya!"_

In the lit stillness of the upstairs hallway, Reva Setterton's words of aversion and ire made me bristle. Shaking off the feeling of needles dipped in ice water piercing my backside, I headed for the master bedroom. On my way, I noticed that the door to the spare room had been left slightly ajar. Peering through the small crack, I could just make out Kitty's curved outline sitting on the bed. The same bed where Heaven—our former stepdaughter and child of Kitty's ex-lover—had once slept in. Careful not to startle my wife, I pulled the door forward and knocked vigilantly.

"Kitty?" I spoke her name and the words which followed with softness and love. "What are you doing? Why are you sitting all alone in here, shut off from the rest of the world?"

I was not the least bit put off by her lack of response. It was in the way she went right on staring at the cabinets flanking the wall on the other side of the room that made me wonder what she might be thinking of. The sight of her sitting there, in her plush pink robe, her left hand pressing firmly to the area where her right bosom used to be, was every bit as heartbreaking as it was pitiful. More than a year had passed since her last sashay through the doors of her famed beauty salon in Atlanta. The artificial breast she now wore in place of its bona fide predecessor did little to lift her spirits, however; so terrified was she of someone discovering that what lay beneath wasn't genuine. Her auburn hair was now a wig fashioned out of real human hair. Not her own hair, but hair whose shade and texture were close enough to what hers was and would be again that no one but herself, her girls—the eight young female hairdressers who kept things at the salon running smoothly in her absence—and myself would ever be any the wiser. The idea had first been posed by Cheyanne Matthews (in addition to being Kitty's 'best' girl, Cheyanne was her best friend as well), but it was all eight women who'd banded together in order to give back to Kitty a little piece of what her illness had taken from her.

Contrary to the wig being custom-made, it looked even more natural than Kitty's real hair had. Simple yet elegant, the wig was fashioned into a lovely little bob that barely graced her shoulders. But it was the simplicity of her new hair that became her in ways that overshadowed her former signature updos and beehives. Ironic how the hairstyles she'd teased and perfected to such extremities were what had taken on the appearance of costumed wigs. If she did decide she wanted to style her own hair into a bob once it grew back, any protests that arose would not have come from me. Besides, why would anyone dare to complain about the way Kitty chose to wear her hair? The idea was every bit as ridiculous as the green straw hat Reva Setterton wore to church! The hat, which mimicked the color of cold pea soup gone thick and lumpy after sitting for too long in the pot, was part of what Kitty jokingly called her mother's 'church-goin outfit'.

Sucking in a sharp breath, I made one last attempt to reach her. "I've prepared your favorite for dinner," I said easily. "Spaghetti, and garlic bread made from scratch. You're still so thin, darling. It won't hurt to load up on the starches for a while."

Again she failed to so much as glance my way. I was on the verge of giving up, when there arose from the far side of the bed the soft, melancholy voice to which I'd grown so accustomed. "Y'all been so sweet t'me," she said. "Makes me feel guilty fer neva havin no appetite."

Not at all the response I'd been hoping for, but at least she was talking. "You said the same thing last night." Pushing the door open the rest of the way, I stepped into the room. "Honey, please. You haven't had a proper meal since you got out of the hospital nearly a year ago. And you spend all of your time sitting alone in our room"—I paused, glanced around—"or in here. Come to think of it, I can't remember the last time I saw you bake anything in your kiln."

"Don't kerr nothin bout kilns no more."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "But of course you do."

"No. Don't."

"Why not?"

"Jus don't. That's all."

"No. That isn't all," I answered firmly, the words and tone in which I delivered them making me feel like a teacher dealing with an insubordinate student.

Unfazed, Kitty fell silent. She returned to studying the cabinets, prompting me to decide who among us should take the next step. Crossing the room, I sunk down onto the bed beside her. Wordlessly, I reached out and drew her into my arms, my heart all but melting as she snuggled up close, making me think of a small child seeking comfort after waking from a nightmare. Oh, but she made it easy—so very easy!—to forget sometimes that she was nearly ten years older than I.

"Meant what I said before, Cal," she murmured, her words slightly muffled against the folds of my shirt. "All of it. Lookin back, I see what I thought were accomplishments fer what they really is: failures. Failures an junk. Ya said so yerself, remember?"

I flinched. She was right. I _had _said that, minus the failure part, and always in the heat of many a fevered moment. So frustrated had I been with her for refusing to clear out her ceramic supplies from the spare room. If she'd failed at anything, it was in her responsibility to provide Heaven with her own bedroom.

"Failed at otha thins, too," Kitty went on. "Kin't do nothin right. Neva could. Couldn't be no motha t'Heaven, or a wife t'ya."

Oh, but she might as well have stuck me with a knife, for that was how deeply her words cut! Sadder still was the manner in which she delivered them; in that staggering slur of nouns and verbs that would have otherwise been adorable. Tilting back her head, she met my eyes, and I saw that she was crying, the tears running in long, fine lines down her pale, sunken cheeks.

"That's why she left, ain't it? Cause I hurt her till she jus couldn't take no more."

"Don't be silly, sweetheart. Heaven left because she has family in Boston she wanted to see," I insisted.

"Ain't heard nothin from her since, though, have we?" Kitty pointed out, speaking with a composed candor and a regret that was unmistakable. "No lettas. No postcards. Not a word about how she's doin, iffen she's happy."

"I'm sure she's doing just fine. She's probably just very busy with school and friends and hasn't had but a few fleeting moments to spare."

Lies!

Were it not for Kitty's violent temper and unpredictable mood swings, if only I'd stopped to consider the consequences of how my infatuation with a teenaged girl would ultimately lead me down a path of illicit destruction, then our lives and all that lay ahead might not appear quite so bleak.

Guilty though we both were of crimes that, in the eyes of the law and decent people alike would be considered monstrous, it was Kitty whose remorse manifested itself in ways that transversed all mutual feelings of shame and disgust. For her, admitting that she was not only responsible but _capable_ of harming a child—a child whose only mistake was in choosing the wrong people to be her parents—was too much. Being back home, in the place where Heaven's memory was strongest, had forced Kitty to examine herself and her actions from all angles. If her apology to Heaven at the hospital in Winnerrow had been an experiment, then what Kitty did upon her return to Candlewick was the _true_ test. She had spent our first full day back home wandering aimlessly from room to room, never staying in one or the other for too long. Watching her, I imagined she must be reflecting on all of the things she and Heaven had experienced together in those rooms. The same violence Kitty had experienced as a little girl and young woman were repeated again, by her own hand this time, her victim a girl as blameless and wanting of a mother's love as Kitty had been.

That night, as we'd prepared for bed, Kitty began to weep. She wept longer and harder than I'd ever known her to. For many hours I cradled her trembling, emaciated body in my arms, rocking her as one would a baby. Nestled together, in the shrouds of cottons and silks, I had listened attentively to her confess things I had heard a thousand times before, while others she'd shared with me for the very first time. Every narrative was tragic and heartbreaking, nearly all of them accentuated by a howling, gut-wrenching sob. Sobs which caused Kitty to shudder so violently and uncontrollably that I'd hugged her so tightly she'd gasped for breath.

"Don't lie t'me, Cal," she said now, her face and voice pleading. "Y'all know I _hate_ bein lied ta. Don't kerr iffen it's fer my own good. Luke used t'lie, too. An it don't hurt no less when _yer _t'one doin it."

Not since the notorious Luke Casteel had visited Kitty at the Winnerrow Memorial Hospital following her surgery had I heard her speak his name aloud. "Kitty," I said, "darling, you're breaking my heart. You did the best you could to be a mother to Heaven."

It was true. She _had _done her best, even if her 'best' was seen as child abuse in the eyes of the only two people who'd witnessed it—namely, Heaven and myself. "She's a grown woman now," I reminded the distraught woman in my arms. "She has a life to live, goals to achieve. Even if things _had _been different, it would have been unfair to force her to stay with us."

A disquieting hush settled over the room then, the only other sound that of the small, wind-up clock chiming the hour of eight from its place high atop one of the storage cabinets. Locked away like some filthy secret behind the doors of those cabinets were the molds Kitty had used to create her zoo of colorful critters. Along with boxes marked with return addresses were the molds, many which were unpacked and noticeably used. Always Kitty had denied having purchased them, insisting she'd made every flower pot, lamp, canister, and a multitude of other what-have-you's herself. I hadn't cared enough to confront her on her deception, believing as always that it was better to leave well enough alone than to provoke her wrathful temper.

After all, I'd had Heaven to think of then.

_Heaven._

What had happened between us was far worse than a lapse in judgment. It was a _sin_ for which I was solely to blame. I knew that now, and so did Heaven, though she'd realized it long before I. For her, I would have done most anything to guarantee her everlasting happiness. In an ironic twist of fate, it was her happiness that had forced me to abandon her in a room at the same motel where her father had abandoned my wife all those years ago. Since we'd parted ways, I had cursed myself each day for taking from Heaven that which could never be restored. The sorrow of truth coupled with her desperate need for a real father had shone unmistakably in those bottomless cornflower blues each time we'd lain together. It was true that Kitty's destructive acts and refusals to accept my advances had set the stage for my desire for a girl who was supposed to be our daughter. But it was _I_ who had ultimately raised the curtain, and taken that which was not mine to take. Even when Heaven had protested, saying that what we were doing was wrong and how it would only end up hurting Kitty more—Kitty, who at the time was enduring test after miserable test at a hospital in Atlanta, her doctors all trying in vain to get to the root of her problem—I'd still insisted there was nothing to worry about, that neither Heaven nor I should feel guilty.

It was only later, as I'd sat by Kitty's bedside in a secluded room at the Winnerrow Memorial Hospital, that I realized she'd been right: I _was _a "damned fool''. The very damnedest of all damned fools, though not in the way she'd meant. I'd taken advantage of a girl who'd trusted me, a girl who'd come to me for help countless times! Kitty had nearly taken the skin from Heaven's face, but what I'd done was worse, far, far worse…

Swiftly, I steered my thoughts away from my most disgraceful mistake. Stashing it inside a Pandora's box of eternal damnation and regret, I threw down the latch, sealing it, wishing I could wipe away the past as easily as chalk from a blackboard. Erase Heaven's memory from my life, and mine from hers, even as I came to realize, with a sort of sickening desperation, the impossibility of such longing.

Spending day after day in the hospital with Kitty, it was with burning fervor that I'd begun to second guess my involvement with Heaven. (_"That's all the more reason to move fast, Heaven. Loving you has made me realize I never really loved her."_) The bed where I'd taken her innocence was the same bed in which I'd made love to my wife! What made it that much more despicable was that a part of me still regarded Heaven as a replacement for my estranged sister, as well as the daughter I would never have.

The day of Kitty's surgery, while I waited anxiously for the doctor to bring me news of how it had gone, I'd sought out the hospital's small prayer room. Kneeling before the front pew, I prayed for Kitty's recovery and asked God to make her the person she was when first we'd met. That her harsh hand and viper's tongue would serve as reminders of a past that would never again repeat itself.

As I prayed, I thought of how, much like a starving dog, I had devoured every scrap Kitty had tossed me from her table of earthly pleasures. While a stronger man would have rebelled, I opted to play the part of the weak-willed husband to perfection. Throwing me a bone now and again was Kitty's way of seeing that I stuck around. Luke's account of how the Settertons were as much to blame as he for the way Kitty had turned out shed a whole new light on her past, and cut right to the core of her suffering. No one could escape the circumstances she had—losing both the man she'd loved and their unborn child within just hours of one another—and emerge unscathed. For Kitty, the experience of losing what she loved most had been unbearable. So unbearable she'd gone to unimaginable lengths to keep what she believed was hers and hers alone. With each passing year, the greater her obsession and paranoia grew. Fearing that _I_ would one day abandon her like Luke and her four previous husbands, Kitty had made it her mission to keep me a prisoner. Dressing up in skimpy lingerie while a child slept between us, threatening to cut me off financially if ever I threatened to divorce her were her two most powerful weapons. Yet there was always something vulnerable lurking deep beneath her jealous surface and curves so swollen that I'd often wondered how my own heart was still beating at all.

That vulnerability had revealed itself to me many times, always in the form of a young woman hovering halfway between the stages adolescence and adulthood. Her pale green eyes were fearful inside her sweet, heart-shaped face, its color and smoothness that of porcelain. Her long, red hair was always plaited, the roots pulled so tightly that the whiteness of her scalp was visible.

It was that same girl I found waiting for me in Kitty's room when I returned from the chapel. A girl whose fear and uncertainty were highlighted in the tired face of the woman whose spirit and body were wasting away before my very eyes. Why, my wife could no more help breaking under the weight of a life marked by violence and betrayal than I could help loving her despite it all!

Crying, I gingerly lifted her pathetically shrunken hand and pressed it to my cheek. Her hand was ice cold, as if she were already gone. A single tear slipped from my eye and rolled down my cheek, splashing onto her hand.

She looked up then, her eyes glassy, almost translucent. She whispered my name. "Cal."

The weakness in her voice was a clear indication of what was happening. The cancer was winning, and unless she decided now, right now, this very second, to fight against it, then she could very well die.

Swallowing hard against the painful lump that had arisen in my throat, I leaned in close, whispering softly so as to disguise my sobs. "Yes, my darling?"

I waited for her to tell me which method of eternal rest she preferred. Did she wish for her remains to be stored inside an urn and placed atop the mantle of our living room fireplace? Or would she like a less permanent setting, one where the winds would carry and scatter her ashes like autumn leaves? The ocean, perhaps, or a mountain whose view need not overlook that of Winnerrow, or any other part of West Virginia.

Bracing myself for the worst, I balled the hand resting on my knee into a tight, unrelenting fist. My shield against the ruthless slew of answers to questions I'd considered many hundreds of times before, but hadn't the courage to ask.

"Been doin some thinkin since Heaven come ta see me this mornin," Kitty said, her tone light, almost cheerful. "Tole me ya loved me, she did. Said if fer nothin else, I had t'pull through fer ya. Neva thought I'd do that, even that I'd want ta. Then Luke done tole me what really happened, t'night he left me. Made me feel dumb fer believin all I did about men. Know now _yer _t'one I want ta spend my life wid—t'one I want standin by me always. Hope y'all will give me one last chance…a chance t'fix what I done broke." She smiled, the tears in her eyes portals to a promise I somehow knew would be kept. "Yer t'only man eva loved me fer me, Calhoun Dennison. Ain't neva judge me, or want me ta be anythin more or less than what I is."

My God! How to hold against her the awful things she had done, after a confession as honest and heartfelt as this?

"Oh, Kitty! I love you, too! Never has there been a time that I haven't! Though I'm afraid I don't quite follow what direction you're headed in this discussion…"

"Thought ya might say that. So's I'll tells ya now, before that nice Dr. Gallaga gits back." Smiling once more, she said, "Done made up my mind. Gonna do t'chemotherapy. Have t'surgery."

Had I heard her right? Did she just agree to do what her doctors, Heaven and I had all gone well out of our way to convince her was the answer? "Oh, sweetheart! That's wonderful!" I cried, the last word breaking as tears of relief and joy flooded my eyes. "You've no idea how happy you've made me!" Lowering my voice, I asked, "Do you really mean it?"

Kitty laughed, a hushed, barely discernible sound. "Kin't stand seein a grown man cry. An I love ya too much t'leave ya here all by yer lonesome."

It was now my turn to laugh. How very like Kitty to knock my manhood like that. Seizing her hand, I kissed the back and then the front, before grabbing the other and doing the same. I was sitting with my head bowed into her hands when Dr. Gallagher walked into the room.

"Got somethin t'tell ya, doc," Kitty said.

In choosing life over death, my wife had unwittingly inspired me to do everything in my power to repair our marriage which, if we were honest with ourselves, had been crumbling since long before Heaven had come into our lives. In the days following our return to Candlewick, Kitty had shared with me something I was not aware of. Not long before she'd announced her decision to undergo the treatments necessary to save her life, she had told Heaven to marry me. The confession had left me feeling both touched and disturbed. That my wife would attest to the very thing that bordered so close to the sin I'd committed when she was dying drove me to tears. I told her that the accusations her mother had made against Heaven and myself were true, but that none of it was Heaven's fault. I expected Kitty to strike me—to scream at me to get out of her house. That she wanted a divorce, or so help her she'd go after Heaven next. But Kitty did neither of these things. She'd simply sat there on the couch in our spacious white living room, looking so small and so fragile, her smile that of someone who's just been told that the snow outside has melted and the sun is shining. The kind of smile that told me everything she'd said to Heaven and to me in the hospital was true. That she, Kitty, had forgiven me, just as I had forgiven her. She was sorry, she said, and finished grieving over Luke. It was me she loved now, the way she always had. She just hadn't wanted to believe it. Not when for her it would have meant renouncing her love for another before she was ready.

Now little more than frail sticks swathed inside the baggy sleeves of a light pink blouse that no longer fit her, Kitty's arms lifted. Her hands shaking, she worked to unravel the pretty silk scarf of pink and purple florals from around her head, letting it fall, unnoticed, into her lap. The tips of her fingers pressed against the surface of her hairless scalp, her face crumpling bit by bit, as if in slow motion. As her quiet sobs punctuated the still air, I attributed them to the cries a small bird makes when it is lost or in danger.

It was there, from my place on the floor at her feet, that I saw not the woman of every man's wildest fantasy, but a _human being._ The wall she had put up months ago to keep me out finally gave way, tumbling to reveal the woman I had always known was there, hiding behind a flawless crown of red hair and carefully applied makeup. Seeing her then, in the state her cancer had reduced her to, made me love her just a little bit more than I did when we'd left Winnerrow.

"Oh, Kitty," I whispered, already rising. "Oh, sweetheart…"

Sinking down onto the sleeper sofa beside her, I was careful not to hurt her as I embraced her gaunt frame. It was still so unfamiliar to me, I was afraid of shattering her if I lost control and squeezed too hard. "I'm so sorry. So very sorry for not being there for you…for not being more patient, more attentive…for failing to be the sort of husband I swore to you I would be…"

"Quit that," she chided woefully. "I'm t'one should be apologizin. Drove ya t'do what ya did. Wasn't tryin ta…didn't even know I was doin it…not til it were too late. But that's what happened, ain't it? Got t'live wid it now. Ain't nobody t'blame but myself. That's t'honest t'God truth."

"Let's not talk about it anymore," I said. "Let's just concentrate on moving forward. All I want you to worry about now is getting better. You need to start eating again, build your strength back up. It troubles me to see you so thin."

"That's only cause ya ain't neva seen me thin before."

"I love you no matter what size you are, Kitty. But I won't have you wasting away to nothing."

"Ya mean that?" Her lips quivered sweetly, as though daring me to kiss them. "Ya love me still, even though I look like this?"

"Honey, have you not heard a word I've said? Looks have nothing to do with what or how I feel for you. Yes, I'll admit I couldn't get over how beautiful I thought you were, the first time I saw you. When I looked across that smoke-filled room, and there you were, sitting all alone at a table. I wanted so much to talk to you, but was afraid you'd turn me down, on account of how shy and young I was. Then you smiled at me, and invited me to sit down. I had no idea what that night would bring. All I could think was what a privilege it was to be in your company, and that if all you wanted to share with me was a drink and a chat, then I was all for it. Looking back, I truly believe our encounter was fate's way of teaching two lost souls what it means to love and to _be_ loved."

Any remaining doubts I'd had regarding Kitty's sincerity were quickly vanquished by the tears I could see gathering in the corners of her eyes. My God, she was breathtaking. Even though her hair was all gone, and the chemotherapy had caused her to shed an additional fifteen pounds to the ten she'd already lost when we'd set off for Winnerrow in August, she was still the same woman I'd fallen in love with just a little over seven years ago. I gently cupped her face in my hands, and with great tenderness thumbed away her tears.

"This is it," I said. "Our new beginning. No regrets. No apologies. Just you and me. The way it should have been. The way I promise you it will be. Not just now, but for always."

I kissed her then, softly and slowly, wanting nothing but to savor the taste of her sweet lips on mine. She'd been complaining lately of how dry and cracked her lips were—a side effect triggered by her bouts of frequent vomiting and plethora of medications the doctors had her on. Still, the condition of her lips was one I failed to notice, for I was far too absorbed in the forceful, determined way she was pressing them to mine, as if she were a bee and my mouth the flower whose nectar was the only thing that could ever satisfy her appetite. If I had loved her just a bit more before, then I was head over heals now. All because she had told me, with this one, seemingly eternal kiss, that she loved me back. The way I'd always needed her to.

_Thank you, Heaven… Thank you, Luke…_

So lost was I in those memories of the events that had delivered us from hell, and bestowed upon us a love that had always seemed just out of reach. After taking a moment to reacquaint myself with my present surroundings, I was surprised to find we were not in the living room downstairs, but in the spare bedroom on the second floor.

Kitty began to whimper. "Miss her, Cal. Really miss her." There was no need for me to ask who it was she was referring to. "Want so bad t'see her agin. Want her t'know how sorry I am fer all t'wrong I done her. Got me a feelin she didn't believe me none when I tole her back in Winnerrow."

I sighed, though I was careful not to let Kitty hear it. The mere mention of her hometown was enough to make my chest tighten and my stomach twist. "I know how much you want to see Heaven again," I offered sympathetically. "But there are obstacles. First, we would have to find out her address in Boston—and to do that, we'd have to contact her father. He's the only one likely to know her exact whereabouts."

"So we'll call him on t'phone an ask im."

She made it sound as easy as a walk to the mailbox . "I'm afraid it isn't quite that simple, Kitty. Even if we did reach out to Luke, I'm not so sure he'd appreciate us meddling in his life or the lives of his family."

Anxiously I waited for a sign, some clue that I'd pushed Kitty too far and now she was going to let me have it. As if by their own accord, my shoulders stiffened, and the fingers of both my hands on her back clenched slightly. And all the while she remained in my arms, not doing or saying anything. She simply went on as she had before, content to nestle in the snug embrace I was always so happy to provide her.

"We'll discuss what to do about the Casteels later," I replied at length, if only to humor her. Looking at my watch, I was surprised to see it was a quarter to nine. "Right now, I want you to come downstairs and have dinner with me."

"Ya haven't eaten?" Kitty sounded so sweetly surprised, as if my putting off dinner by an hour or so was cause for alarm.

"I was waiting for _you."_

She hugged me and kissed my cheek, then sat up and stared into my eyes. As I watched a shadow of moonlight flit across her face, I remarked in silence on how puffy it was (a combination of chemo treatments and endless crying spells, no doubt), not to mention the dark circles under her eyes. The poor thing hardly slept at all anymore. It was an all too frequent occurrence that I would awaken in the night to the sound of Kitty weeping in the spare bedroom. Or, if the need to be strident struck her, she would occasionally venture into one of the rooms downstairs. Always did I follow, no matter how late or tired I was. What ever the problem, I'd made it an unspoken rule that we never return to our bed until after we'd talked it out.

Even if it led to one or both of us watching the sunrise.

I was in the first grade when I started falling behind in my schoolwork. But it was not until I began to distribute aggressive behavior towards my peers that school officials took notice, and with my parents' permission arranged for me to see a psychologist. My father, a chief criminal prosecutor, had thought the idea preposterous, believing that all I needed to straighten me out was a firm hand. It was only when the principal threatened to expel me that he relented, albeit grudgingly.

One session was all it took for Dr. Burgess Elliot to conclude that I was not some depraved youth on the path to delinquency. I was merely emulating the behaviors of the man I was expected to obey. Most kids ran to greet their fathers with hugs and kisses when he arrived home from work in the evenings. But not the two Dennison children. It was by decree that my sister and I address our father exclusively as 'sir' or 'the Judge', and 'Father' in writing only. We were expected to stand at attention, and wait for the granting of permission, before doing or saying anything. Things like scuffed shoes and the forgetting of manners were considered heinous crimes, punishable by whatever means my father chose. Our old apartment back in Connecticut had had a courtyard, and in that courtyard had stood a hickory tree. Forcing the guilty party to run laps around the tree until they either succumbed to physical exhaustion or were told to stop was one way my father had of disciplining my sister and I. The other was far worse, however, as it combined both physical and mental natures. If one of us was suspected of breaking some rule, even a small one, then our father was not above going to extreme measures to find out who. Summoning us into his study, he would have us stand together before the wide desk while glinting at us a slew of questions we were expected to answer both clearly and honestly. I had never seen my father at work in a courtroom before, and as far as I knew neither had my sister. But from everything we'd heard and all we'd been told, he was ruthless to the point where he actually seemed to enjoy condemning anyone suspected of being a criminal—even those believed to be innocent, or whose crimes had been petty or committed in self defense. Even when those being accused were the Judge's very own flesh and blood, his attitude never once softened or even wavered. In truth, it was apt to being even more unyielding, even violent. Once he had extracted the truth from the two children who trembled before their brutish father like deer frozen in the glow of oncoming headlights, he would order whomever he had deemed innocent to go outside and cut from the hickory tree a switch. Switch in hand, the innocent then returned to the study. Handing the switch over to the Judge, the innocent was made to stand by and watch, as the one found guilty received their punishment. By the time I was nine and Paige was three, we saw that tree in a way similar to how we saw our father: tall and menacing, its roots buried too long and much too deep in the same ground so that any attempts to move it proved feckless. When no one else was around, I would deliver to that hated hickory tree the sort of blows I could only fantasize about giving my father.

To this day, I can still recall the wisened words of Dr. Elliot. He was the first person besides my mother to whom I'd confided my most trying and painful ordeals. His compassion and willingness to listen had opened to me doors I'd thought locked forever. For me, trust in others was as unlikely a thing to encounter as apple cider in the springtime. On the rare occasion I did happen to find myself trusting someone, I would put myself on guard, careful not to take anything they said or did for granted. My relationship with Dr. Elliot was no exception. Sharing with him only the things I was comfortable with, I glossed over or completely omitted everything else. Like how my father would bind my wrists and those of my little sister behind our backs each night, all for the sake of preventing us turning over in our sleep.

We had to be perfect, always perfect, even while we slept.

"'Patience is not an easy trait to obtain or to keep, Calhoun,'" Dr. Elliot had told me during our first session together. His answer was in response to something I'd said about my baby sister being a pest because she cried too much and received more attention from my mother than I did. "'It is not something we are given, like the color of our hair or shoe size. Like most things, patience is something to be learned and strived for. A virtue achieved through individual performance, hard work, and, most of all, understanding.'"

Words that had not only helped me survive a tumultuous childhood, but opened my eyes and my heart to the shame hidden deep beneath my wife's violent exterior.

Inadvertently, it was Kitty whose sweet southern accent interrupted my current reverie. "Love ya, Cal," she cooed. "Love ya more than any otha man. More than them three otha husbands come before ya."

She halted then, or rather appeared to, her eyes lifting to meet mine.

"More than Luke."

Oh! How delightful to see her blushing! Her smile, so dainty and shy, gave the impression she was embarrassed to have been caught doing something vulnerable, even as her green eyes sparkled like the faux emerald studs fastened to her earlobes. The earrings—which I'd purchased at the hospital gift shop to commemorate the success of her surgery—had quickly become her favorites, having taken precedence over even her flashiest, most expensive pairs. Hoops of silver and gold, even the sparkling, multi-colored jewels that had always adorned her small, perfect ears were a sight as rare as an eclipse these days. I smiled. How trinkets such as those tiny, simple studs that would likely dull with time and wear could ever compare to the sophistication and splendor of Katherine Velma Dennison I shall never know.

* * *

That night, I waited until after Kitty had fallen asleep before stealing silently out of our room and into the spare bedroom next door. Sitting down at the desk that had been Heaven's, I removed the cover from the typewriter I'd given her when she'd turned fifteen. Selecting a fresh sheet from the stack of paper stored neatly inside one of the side drawers, I inserted it into the roller. Once I had it centered to my satisfaction, I aligned my fingers with the appropriate keys, and began to type.

**_Dear Father and Mom,_**

**_As I compose this letter, I can only imagine the shock it must cause you to hear from me after all these years. As you know, I am married now, to a very wonderful, lovely woman named Kitty. We reside in the town of Candlewick, a small subdivision in Atlanta, Georgia, and are very happy._**

**_Although our married life is ideal, I cannot say the same for our financial situation. Last summer, Kitty was diagnosed with an advanced form of breast cancer. She underwent immediate surgery, and has been in remission ever since. The cost of the bill, however, is five-thousand dollars, which is beyond our means to pay. We are on the brink of being sued by the hospital, and our house will soon be commandeered by the bank. Because Kitty is still unwell and cannot work, I have had to quit my own job in order to care for her. Regrettably, even our combined savings are not enough to see us through our present circumstances._**

**_My initial thought was to write to Kitty's parents, who live in West Virginia. We stayed with them briefly prior to her surgery, but hesitate to seek their help a second time. Although I merit them for their accommodations, they are not the most compassionate people. They have always treated their daughter with indifference, and have never accepted me as their son-in-law. The morning Kitty was scheduled to go in for her surgery, her parents refused my request to come to the hospital and see her off, or even to visit her afterwards. That should tell you exactly the kind of people they are._**

**_If I do not hear from you, then I shall know what you have decided. In which case, I will respect your choice, and promise not to burden you with my family's troubles again._**

**_Your son,_**

**_Calhoun_**

Because a telephone call would be quicker and more practical than waiting for a hand-written response, I included our telephone number at the bottom of the letter. The desk had a drawer that locked, but I'd be damned if I knew where the key had got to, and I had neither the wish nor the energy to turn the room upside-down to search for it.

So that Kitty would not discover the letter and demand I tell her "what all I was up to", I walked over to the bed and slid my hand beneath the mattress. Using the tips of my fingers, I slowly elevated the mattress away from the box spring and carefully pushed the envelope securely between them. Concealed well enough that no one but me would ever know the the letter was there or that it existed; near enough to the opening for me to grab when I returned the next morning to retrieve it and drop it in the mailbox.

Drawing my now empty hand out from beneath the mattress, I watched it drop back into place. Turning towards the nightstand, I switched off the light and promptly swept back through the door, letting it close softly behind me.


	3. Chapter 3: Resolutions

**DOWN IN THE VALLEY**

A **Casteel Series** Fan-Fiction Written by one . long . melody

Based Upon the Novels **HEAVEN** and **DARK ANGEL** Written by V.C. Andrews

**Author's Disclaimer:** I do not own **The Casteel Series**, nor any of the series, books, characters, names, places, etcetera presented in this work, with the exception of those I created. All other series, books, characters, names, places, etcetera (including those associated with **The Logan Series**, **The Dollanganger Series** and **My Sweet Audrina**) belong to V.C. Andrews. Any recognizable quotes or passages—most notably those presented in italic format—were taken directly from the books.

The character of Janet Matthews, the television series **_Rectify_**, the town of Paulie, Georgia, Swints' Bakery, and all characters, names, places, etcetera pertaining thereto are the property of Ray McKinnon and Sundance TV.

**_The Chronicles of Narnia_** and **_The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe_**, as well as the White Witch/Jadis, all characters, names, places, etcetera are the creations of C.S. Lewis.

The town of Port Charles, New York is featured in the soap opera series **_General Hospital_**, which is owned by ABC (production company) and American Broadcasting Company (distributor). (Thanks to Wikipedia for providing this information.)

**Rating:** T, but may change to M in the future (for graphic depictions of child abuse, coarse language, and some sexual content).

**Genre:** Family/Romance

**Story-Type:** Multiple-Chapter

**Summary:** Forced to abandon the comforts and familiarities of Candlewick, Georgia, Kitty and Cal Dennison set out for New England, to the lakefront estate of Cal's affluent family. There, the couple must confront the demons of their pasts—and discover that not every story's ending is without a miracle.

**A Note From the Author:** Although far from completion, _**Down in the Valley**_ is a story that was a long time coming—more than seven years, in fact. I first began writing it in the winter of 2012, during which I was dealing with a serious health issue. My life and relationships were suffering, and so was my writing. The craft of story-telling is something I have loved ever since I was a child, and once I got better, I was able to gradually ease my way back into what I am most passionate about.

It was a few weeks after my birthday in 2016 that my interest in **The Casteel Series** and all things V.C. Andrews—and, to an even greater extent, my obsession with my beloved Dennisons—made an unexpected though no less welcome return to my life. While most of the material included in **_Down in the Valley_** is fresh, much of what you will read in Chapter 2, as well as a few other lines scattered here and there in some of the early chapters, were originally written back in 2012.

During late 2016, I experienced a relapse with my illness. I was working on this story at the time, and while it was never cancer I was facing, I was able to relate the feelings and emotions attached to what I was going through to what Kitty endures.

So, in honor of the upcoming release of Lifetime's Heaven film—as well as the official trailer that I watched for the first time three nights ago and at least ten more times since—I wanted to post my latest contribution to my favorite fandom. **_Down in the Valley_** is intended as a labor of my love for Kitty and Cal Dennison, whose actions in the book(s) are equally horrible in very different ways, I know. However, from the time I was a very young child, I have been inclined to favor the villains over the heroes in certain works of fiction. I am no less biased when it comes to Cal and Kitty. In the style of Olivia Logan, my preferences as an adult have not changed one iota.

That said, I hope those of you who have read this far choose to read on. And, if you do decide to take that road, then it is my wish that you will enjoy my take on what I not so much imagined would have happened to the Dennisons, but what I _wanted_ to happen to them, had Kitty lived.

~mel

* * *

_Dedicated with affection and admiration to Christina Vining:_

_Just as our friendship has grown with each passing year, so shall your own two little miracles._

* * *

**Part One**

**CROSSROADS**

* * *

**Three**

**RESOLUTIONS**

I SENSED SOMETHING WAS OFF ABOUT CAL THE NEXT morning as he shuffled wearily into the kitchen. Peering over the rim of the cup of coffee I was nursing, I saw that his eyes were shadowed and blood-shot, the way they were when he'd been up all night, contemplating. Or drinking. Only Cal didn't drink, save for special occasions. He was partial to wine, but still the most I'd ever seen him down at once was a single glass. Anything more than that, he said, made him feel sluggish and sleepy.

Even so, one look at his face told me there was more to his present state than a bad night's sleep. I was sure it had to do with me, whatever it was. Alcohol had the opposite effect on me as it did on Cal. For me, drinking one small glass was no different than if I'd drunk a _dozen_ small glasses. With every sip I was transformed. I turned louder and more vulgar than when I was sober. Some people, even Cal, had said I was racy, impaired so much that I'd flirt shamelessly with other men. My friends considered my intoxicated self to be the highlight of every party and girl's night out. Laughing and shouting encouragement when I'd climb up onto a table, tottering unsteadily in my six-inch heels, using a spoon as a makeshift microphone to slur drunken versions of show-tunes. If my husband was nearby, then it was only a matter of time before he got wind of what he considered my most embarrassing escapades. He'd stop what ever he was doing, abandon who ever he was talking to, and race to my side. Hijacking the glass from my hand, he'd take me by the hands, and carefully guide me down from what ever table or chair I happened to be standing on. He'd speak to me the way he would a small child, saying I'd had enough for one night, that it was late and how we really ought to be getting home, orders that were always met with dismay from my girlfriends.

I could just imagine what a relief it had been for him, when I'd started chemotherapy, and been instructed by my chemotherapist to quit drinking. Something about how the alcohol could affect the way the treatments worked. I hadn't minded, or even cared much. Months had past since I'd had a drink, or even felt like having one. Time enough that I'd all but forgotten when I'd last had the urge to pop a cork or take a long, blissful slug of my favorite strawberry margarita.

"Mornin, sweetheart love," I greeted Cal. Not wanting to add to what I could only suspect was his unhappiness, I made sure to play up the cheerfulness in my voice. From my place at the table, I watched the gloominess that had risen with him back in our bedroom and followed him into the kitchen disappear. My heart rose in unison with the smile that brightened his handsome face, erasing what had, seconds ago, been what my granny would have surely called my husband's ruffled feathers.

"Good morning, my beautiful darling," Cal replied. His pleasure at finding me waiting for him was made even clearer as he hugged me tight. Kissing me with the sort of longing the both of us had been missing and aching for at this time last year, when our marriage had nearly fallen apart. "Thank you for being adorable." Another squeeze before he released me, his face tired even as it went right on brimming with a grin that rivaled even the most glorious Georgia sunset.

Only after he'd slumped down into the chair across from me did I state the obvious question. "Somethin t'matta? Ya done look like ya got hit by a truck."

He said, "I _feel _like I got hit by a truck."

"Didn't ya git no sleep last night?"

"Not much. I was too busy thinking."

"Thought I heard ya crawl inta bed lata than ya do. What was it kept ya from catchin any z's?"

He was slow to reply, and I imagined he was searching for exactly the right words."I was just thinking," he repeated,"that it might be nice if we...if we were to..." He cleared his throat, clearly nervous about saying aloud what it was he wanted us to do. "...If we visited my parents in New England this summer."

The widening of my eyes and the way my jaw nearly hit the floor had to have made my feelings crystal clear. Seven years ago, when Cal had first described his childhood to me, I didn't think it sounded all that better or worse than mine. True, him and his sister weren't tortured in exactly the same horrible ways as me, but their father had been verbally abusive, and so ruthless he'd given his kids the switch when ever they strayed even an inch out of line. His father had hit them on occasion, Cal had said, and their mother too, if she'd had the guts to stand up to her husband. I couldn't see what it was that would make Cal want to ever go back to that sort of life. At nineteen, when I'd left Winnerrow for the second time, it was with the intention of staying away for good. The only reason I'd gone back those handful of times was to flaunt my handsome husband and big city career in the no-talent faces of my ma and pa.

The thought of watching Cal grovel at the feet of the man who had made his life hell for twenty years was appalling, and I found myself responding to the proposal less than enthusiastically. "Why, honey!" I laughed. "What makes ya want t'do somethin dumb as _that?_ A man would have t'be _crazy _t'go back ta t'place made im so miserable!"

Eight years since Cal had last broached the subject of his family. Eight years since I'd all but pleaded with him to sever all ties with those whose blood was the same as what ran through his own veins. Even then I'd known I was being selfish, and for days I agonized over what I had asked him to do. But my fear of what would happen if my cultured, well-mannered in-laws made the acquaintance of their son's uneducated, hick-drawl bride had won out. In what was typical Cal fashion, he hadn't argued with me, or made any attempts to change my mind. At the time, I was able to convince myself that his lack of backbone was a direct result of his upbringing. Still, I felt guilty enough to go above and beyond my usual efforts to satisfy him in the days and nights which followed. By the next morning, it was like the conversation had never even happened. So long as I gave him what he wanted—what we _both_ wanted—he was willing to do his part. Never again did he mention his family to me, or try to establish any sort of contact with them, so far as I knew.

Until now.

"You're right," he agreed, his laugh sounding more like a cough as sadness filled his eyes. "It's a stupid idea. Forget I brought it up."

Sweet Jesus! What sort of monster was I? I wanted so badly to take back what I'd said just now. To fix the mess my selfish paranoia had made of our lives! I just didn't know how. If I'd been more book-smart, maybe I could've offered up an apology that sounded sincere and not stupid. Cal didn't seem angry, just hurt. Because of me. And knowing that hurt worse than anything.

"Cal, I…I'm sorry," I started timidly. "Sorry fer sayin what I did. Sorrier fer makin ya cut ties wid yer family. Y'all coulda worked thins out _ages _ago. But I were selfish, Cal, so damn selfish."

Tears were in my eyes as he reached across the table for my hands. It was a gesture I'd always found reassuring, coming from him. "You were _never_ selfish." It was sweet of him to say it, lie or not. "Loving you has taught so much, Kitty. And I think that—no, I _believe_—that if _you_ can change, then there's hope for anyone."

He was trying so hard not to compare me to his father. That much was obvious. Did Raymond Dennison ever once look back on his past actions the way I constantly did mine? Was he remorseful, horrified? Did his mistakes and failings as a father and husband fill him with such disgust that he felt physically sick? Contaminated? If given the chance to fix things with his son, would he? I couldn't help but wonder.

Cal squeezed my hands, and I said, "Git what yer sayin. Iffen ya kin fergive me fer everythin I put ya through, makes sense ya'd try an mend thins wid yer fatha."

He nodded thoughtfully, his loving brown eyes never abandoning mine. "I knew you of all people would understand. You know the story of my childhood. How my mother could never bring herself to confront my father. Whenever he would go off on one of his tangents, she would tune it out. Ignore it. For her, pretending that the problem didn't exist was easier than dealing with it. But I never blamed her. Not when she fought so hard to protect us each time things turned physical. When that happened, she'd lock Paige and me inside the hall closet, promising to let us out only after our father had calmed down. He didn't hurt his wife the way he did his children, oh no." Cal shook his head. "It was only when she'd find the courage to interfere that he'd give her a black eye, tear her dress." He shut his eyes, as if trying to shield himself from the memories these accounts no doubt unearthed. When he opened his eyes again, I saw that the bottom corners were lined by the shine of new tears. I heard him swallow. "The worst thing he ever did was break her nose."

I shook my head in what was as much disbelief as an attempt to rid it of flashes showing a bruised and battered woman as she fought to protect her two young children. The time it had taken Cal to put to words what I imagined was only just a sample of the horrors he'd suffered as a child served as a harsh reminder to me. A reminder that I, much like my father-in-law, would forever bear the label of child-beater and spousal-abuser. No one but Cal, Heaven, and I would ever so much as glimpse the face behind the mask I had worn, in order to hide the person I'd really been.

It was now my turn to squeeze Cal's hand, and I did so using every ounce of strength I had. Always I had been self-conscious when it came to my hands. As a teenager and a young woman, I'd hated them. They were too big. Too clumsy. Too likely to crush or break something. If someone commented on what strong hands I had, I couldn't help but be offended, even though, deep down, I knew perfectly well I should feel quite the opposite. It was an insecurity I had shared early on in my relationship with Cal, who'd said as everyone else had said. That my hands were strong, beautiful, and something to be proud of. "After all," he'd concluded softly, all while the fingers of his own hands were lacing gently around my wrists ,"it is because of these hands that you have the skills needed to create so many wonderful works of art." Pulling my hands forward, he'd proceeded to kiss one palm and then the other, still oblivious that I was not the great artist I made myself out to be.

"I'm so sorry, darlin dear," I said now. "Fer ya, fer yer poor momma an sista. It's sad, so terrible sad an awful what that man done ta y'all." Hoping to prevent Cal from picking up on my distress—something he did more often than not—I added, "She sounds like a good woman, yer motha. T'sort I wish I'd had growin up. Iffen I did, maybe I woulda turned out betta." I paused. "More like ya."

He gave me a funny look, like I'd just suggested we clean a house that already sparkled from top to bottom. "I wouldn't want you any other way," he answered bluntly, "than you are right now."

"Always know all t'right thins t'say, don't ya? Even if they ain't always true. But I want ya t'be honest wid me now, Cal. Want ya t'look me in t'eye, an say what we both knows ya been thinkin since t'day we met. That ya'd like me jus a little bit more iffen I'd got myself a propa education."

He yelled, "Kitty, what a thing to imply!" Flinching at this unexpected burst of anger from my soft-spoken and easy-going husband, I observed through the corner of one wary eye as he pushed his chair back from the table with deliberate force. The back struck the drawer housing the silverware, and in turn everything inside rattled. Rising, he stalked over to the counter, snatched the coffee pot off the burner on the stove, and poured himself a cup. "I don't know what it is that motivates you to say such things." He spoke now not with anger, but with sadness and defeat. "Or what I have to say to convince you that you're wrong. You should realize by now that I would never judge others based on how many years they've spent in a classroom. I'll admit I was sheltered—as sheltered as someone with a tyrant for a father can be. But I am not so small-minded that I hold myself above those whose background is different from mine."

Keeping my head lowered, I replied softly, "Know ya don't."

Ashamed of myself for being the one to drag him down even further when he was already on the ground, I sat with my head lowered and my lips pressed tightly together, listening to the clattering of spoon and mug coming together as Cal stirred cream into his coffee.

"Then why ask me questions like the one you just did?" He sounded angry again. I said nothing. Just lapsed into silence and let him rave, figuring I owed it to him. He barreled on. "Are you _hoping _I'll agree with you? Is that it? Do you honestly think so little of yourself that you would manipulate those who love you into confirming your crazy ideas?"

I had spent much of my life being labeled everything from 'crazy' to 'stupid', not to mention many other mean names and definitions that smarted just the same. That Cal's words had the power to wound me even deeper than any physical assault was more than I could stand. Before I could stop myself, I had risen from my own chair, and was shouting back at him. "Don't ya dare be tellin me _I'm_ crazy, Cal Dennison!" Blanching at the sharpness of my tone, as well as the realization that my ability to act overpowered my ability to think, I clamped both hands over my mouth a second too late.

For as long as I'd known him, Cal had been as relaxed and slow to anger as a country boy dozing on his homemade raft, content to hand over all control and responsibility to the unpredictable waters of the river along which he floated. But push him too far and, by golly, that Yankee-born country boy wasn't shy about letting you know it. Not with violence or verbal assaults (he despised such things), but by walking away. Shutting himself up in our basement, where he'd busy himself with his tools, losing himself in what ever project he was working on. Depending on how upset he was, he'd stay down there for hours, even a whole day, leaving me to fret and wallow in the aftermath of what was never anything more than a petty lovers' spat. The kind dealt with by couples every day, all over the world, resolved by the time the sun set and the moon rose in the sky.

The days of when I would emasculate Cal emotionally and physically were long over. We did our best to move past them, reminding ourselves and each other that what had happened was unfortunate, yes, but that the damage had been done, and there was no way to undo it. "'We may not be able to change the past,'" Cal was fond of saying. "'But the present and the future are what we choose to make of them. Paints with which to color the canvas that is our life.'" His was a beautiful sentiment, the sort of thing you'd hear spoken in a line of some old movie. He was right, though. What else could we do, other than accept the things we could not change, and move on? And so, gathering up the pieces of those bitter years, we took the love that had survived it all, and began anew.

Still, there were moments where I couldn't help myself. Moments where it all became just too much, and I felt myself turning back into that raging, raving madwoman.

"Please, Kitty," he said, his pleas making me think of a disobedient child begging forgiveness. "Let's not do this. Let's not go back to the way things were. I'm sorry."

Whether or not he should be wasn't the issue. It was knowing he had no intention of storming off downstairs—or worse, leaving me for good—that filled me with the courage I needed to look him in the eye. Right away, I felt the tightness in my stomach deflate, and I could breathe. He was standing beside me, my husband was, his eyes shining with tears and apology.

Oh! How could anyone feel anything but love for a face as sweet and adoring as his?

Before I could conjure up words worthy of such an expression, Cal had pulled me into a hug, and together we stood, in the middle of our kitchen, holding each other tight, as if letting go would doom us to a life of permanent estrangement.

Cal's damp cheek nuzzled into mine, the feeling of his morning stubble scraping lightly over my own smooth skin. He obliged me a moment, then pulled back to look at me. The tears I had seen travel only as far as the corners of his eyes had since fallen, coursing down his cheeks in slow, even streams. It was a sight that reminded me of all the reasons why I'd fallen so head over heels in love with this man.

"I'm sorry," he choked again. "I didn't mean to upset you." His voice, mild as it was, was still strong enough to drive from my mind thoughts of days long gone. "It just makes me so sad to hear you disparage yourself. I don't understand why you do it. I wish I could do something, say something. Anything to make you see yourself the way I do. You're so beautiful, so charming and talented, and absolutely wonderful. I love you, sweetheart. I care about you. Admire you, respect you. It hurts my feelings that you don't believe me."

"Neva meant t'hurt yer feelins." It made me feel awful, really awful, to know my words could do just as much damage as the slaps I'd once inflicted upon him. "I love ya so much, Cal. More than anythin in t'world. It's _me _I kin't stand. Y'all say ya love me. That ya don't blame me any fer all that's happened. An I believe ya, cause that's t'kind of person ya is. Honest an true. But it don't change t'fact ya done turned yer life upside down t'please me. An that ain't fair, Cal, it ain't! Not when I kin't give ya nothin back in return."

"Love isn't about honoring debts, Kitty. It's about respecting the one you're committed to. It means accepting someone for no more and no less than who and what they are. Love is supporting each other, in sickness and in health, through good times and bad. If you love someone only for what they can give and do for you, then you aren't just taking advantage of them. You're setting yourself up for a lifetime of loneliness and heartache."

He pressed his lips to my forehead, and it was there they remained for a moment. Moving on and kissing the bridge of my nose, they slid slowly downwards, doing the same to the tip. He kissed the area between my nose and top lip, and finally my mouth, an act which drew a deep sigh from me. Then, without so much as a warning, he grabbed me, his hands tracing the noticeably diminished curves of my waist and buttocks. How on earth he could still find me desirable or even attractive only God could say.

"This is nice," he murmured into my ear. "Just you and me, together in peace and tranquility, holding each other, loving one another, is my sweetest dream come true. But darling. I'm so sorry it has to be under such dreadful circumstances."

We stayed that way for some time, as if hugs and sweet-talking would eventually restore those lost years. If it wasn't for the stiff aches and pains that eventually took hold of our backs and legs, or our stomachs announcing it was nearly an hour past the regular time we usually ate breakfast, then I reckoned nothing and no one could ever tear us apart.

It was Cal who took it upon himself to sever our embrace. Instructing me to sit at the table, he returned to the stove, and began whipping up breakfast for the two of us. "I can't bear to watch you get any thinner," he commented, making no effort to hide his concern. "Which is why I won't bother asking if you've eaten yet. What would you say to scrambled eggs over a toasted English muffin? I'll make some bacon, and grits, too, with cinnamon sugar." He smiled, the idea of force-feeding his wife having restored his good mood.

"Okay." Even as I thanked him, I begged him not to go to any trouble on my account. I'd be perfectly satisfied with a bowl of oatmeal and a banana. He assured me it was no trouble, and after darting back across the kitchen to leave a swift but solid kiss on my cheek, he returned to his original task of cooking breakfast. While he worked, he talked, which was typical of him, as cooking was something he'd always enjoyed doing. He told me more about his family, particularly his mother, whose love of Broadway musicals and gourmet cuisine were not so much a shared interest between mother and son as they were inherited family traits. When he arrived at the topic of his sister, however, his voice grew wistful. I listened attentively to his descriptions of the non-physical ways Paige has been abused by her father. "He would do it subtly," Cal explained, "so that no one could accuse him of being cruel. Not that anyone would have dared. Except for those he considered members of his most intimate circle, everyone called him 'the Judge'. Even my sister and I—and, at times, our mother—called him that." He shrugged. "His way of reminding the rest of the world who was in charge, I suppose."

I nodded.

"When he made Paige his scapegoat, no one questioned or confronted him. Something to do with her striking resemblance to our paternal grandmother, who left her son shortly after he was born. For that, he would pick my sister apart, piece by piece, belittling her for the smallest thing. Even her weight and attending Catholic school were flaws in his eyes. He never saw her the same way others did: brilliant, beautiful, a star student. All he ever saw was a disappointment."

No way could I turn a blind eye to the similarities that marked the relationship I had with my parents to the one my sister-in-law had with her father. From the moment I was born, all the way up to the age of thirteen, the year I'd run off to marry my first husband, as well as all those long, languishing days in between, my parents had made it their mission to drill into me the belief that I would never be good enough.

"Yer worth less than t'dirt on t'soles of our shoes," was my mother's favorite way of putting it.

Me getting knocked up had been bad enough, but the idea of any Setterton marrying "hill-scum" was considered unforgivable, even unGodly, in the eyes of my pious parents. If it wasn't for their prejudice views against the Casteels, I knew in my heart I wouldn't have wasted all those years hating Luke. We would have had the life we'd talked for hours about having when we were kids. We'd have our baby—maybe even several babies—and a cabin all our own, up in the Willies…

From my vantage point at the table, I watched Cal use a spatula to slide several slices of bacon from the skillet onto a pair of plates. He dropped the majority onto just one plate, along with a generous helping of scrambled eggs, a single English muffin dripping in orange marmalade, and what must have been a full cup of grits. He put what remained of the bacon and eggs onto the other plate—his plate. The contents wasn't much, especially when compared to that of its neighbor, but I wasn't about argue or even point it out. Instead, I put forth my best and most convincing smile, as he carried everything over to the table. I caught his eye, and he smiled back. He was still smiling, when set the plate with the most food in front of me and sat down.

"I want you to eat it all," he commanded. Amazing, I thought, the way his manner could go from hot to cold and back again, like a light switch being flicked repeatedly. Taking the other plate for himself, he folded his arms over his chest before settling back in his chair. "Every last bite," he added. "I don't want to see a single crumb left on that plate."

Was it my imagination, or was that sternness I detected in his soft-spoken voice?

Hearing him talk this way, with an authority neither one of us thought he possessed—not until fate and circumstance had all but forced that responsibility upon him—made me think of Heaven, how I'd scolded and chastised her for not finishing her McDonald's hamburger. Only Cal wasn't scolding or chastising me the way I had our would-be daughter. Nor was he insisting that 'Kitty' wasn't a name, it was an animal, and how for that reason alone it was stupid. He was showing compassion, which was so much more than I could say for myself. I cringed now, at the memory of having mocked Heaven while a bunch of strangers had looked on in what must have shock and disgust. Having done that made me no better than the kids whose cruel and often inappropriate taunts had made my going to school nothing short of a living hell.

As these and other memories that were far from pleasant drifted over me in a cloud of shame and embarrassment, I had to force myself to eat, praying to God that my husband would be so pleased he'd overlook the anxious way my eyebrows knitted together.

He finished eating long before I, and in between brushing away some invisible crumbs near the corners of his mouth with his napkin, he said, "I have a confession to make."

I stared at him. "Confession?" Not for the life of me could I figure what it was he needed to confess.

Before I could pry him for answers, he said, "I've written a letter. To my parents. I haven't mailed it yet. I wanted to run the idea by you first, see what you thought."

In other words, he felt he'd needed my permission. Not surprising, given all I'd put him through over the years. Even so, I frowned. "D'ya really think it's a good idea? Yer fatha…"

"Can't hurt me anymore. The last time he laid a hand on me, I could not have been more than thirteen years old. He's no more a threat to me now than he was the day I left home for good. And my sister is certain to have moved out and started her own life by now."

I nodded, letting the words sink in. "Then that jist leaves yer motha."

"Yes." Setting down his fork, Cal lightly pressed the hand he'd used to hold it to his chin. I watched him turn his head sideways, our gazes breaking, his eyes lingering on the fork he'd set beside his plate. "We'll wait," he continued after a moment, still unable to tear his focus away from the utensil, as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. "I'll admit I acted rashly, when I brought you back to Winnerrow. But I was desperate. I didn't know what to do, who to turn to." Shaking his head as if to clear it, he proceeded to raise it. Then his eyes fell across my face, and I was aware of the warm blush rising like a flame up from my chest. "But I promise you, darling. I promise to never again subject you to those who would dare do you harm."

I smiled, letting him know I'd forgiven him. "Know ya won't. But Cal. S'pposin yer parents write back? Say they don't want us comin?"

"Then we'll have to find another place to live."

I raised an eyebrow, suddenly suspicious. Was he idling toward the direction I thought he was? "Ya sayin y'all want t'move?"

He gazed seriously into my eyes, enough to confirm what I already knew.

"But Candlewick's our home!" I couldn't believe it! My temper flared, all red hot and unpredictable, the way it used to be, so that I had no choice but to cry out, "Our_ lives _are here! We kin't…we kin't jus up an…an _leave!"_

Was I being selfish? My life _was_ in Candlewick, as were all of my friends. But who all did Cal have but for me? He'd never done much male bonding outside the company of Daniel Matthews, who was married to my best friend, Sherry. Even before getting sick, I'd always complained to Cal if he announced his desire to grab a beer with his buddies after work. I was quick to pounce, reminding him that he was _my _husband, and for that reason alone he had to do as _I _said, else he could forget about having his male urges satisfied. Any attempts to change my mind were met with heated hostility. "'Go right ahead,'" I'd shout at him, all the while fighting back the tears that threatened to spill over and expose me for what and who I was: a scared, vulnerable little girl afraid of losing the only person in the world who really, truly loved her. "Don't matta none t'me where ya go, or what ya do. Kin go back t'mommy an daddy fer all I kerr. So long as ya git t'hell out my house!'"

The truth was, I _had _cared. A lot. I just hadn't known then how to show it. Being abandoned by Luke and divorcing four husbands in the span of less than ten years had taught me what I'd believed was a lifelong lesson: that the only way for a woman to hang on to a man was to convince him he was nothing without her. I'd taken that road with Cal, and in the end given him every opportunity to surrender me to the control of my parents, only to have him do just the opposite. He'd proved his love in every way, going as far as to quit his job as a television repairman to stay at home with me. He was truly so much more than I deserved—a fact I was as sure of as God was that Noah's Ark would survive a world-devastating flood—and I couldn't imagine my life without him.

"Kitty, what else is there to consider?" Cal asked, his lilting voice drawing me gently away from my thoughts. "Why should we remain in a place dominated by our darkest memories? How do you ever expect to recover when every one of these rooms represents some traumatic event in your life?"

My anger having dwindled down to a mere stubborn pout, I argued back weakly. "It's only _some_ rooms I don't like goin inta. Don't have no trouble wid _our_ room. Same goes fer t'livin room, t'kitchen."

He studied me for a bit, closely, as if searching for some sort of explanation, even a small one, for my logic. "Rooms aren't the point," he reasoned. "A house isn't a home if it makes you feel uncomfortable or afraid. Another problem is the cost of this place. With bills and neither one of us working, we simply can't afford to stay on."

As always, he was doing his best to spare me. Keep me from blaming myself for what had become our desperate financial situation. Ever since I was a child, I had carried not only the weight of my own wrongs on my shoulders, but the wrongs of everyone else in the world. Be it getting my period in the middle of gym class so that all the kids had laughed, or the death of my beloved grandmother from breast cancer a year later, I was sure I could make these and other bad things happen simply by thinking about them.

Getting older had done next to nothing to stop these 'magical thoughts'. If anything, they'd only gotten scarier and harder to control—especially now, given all this down time. As it was, I spent far too much of it thinking about the past and everyone I'd hurt (Cal, Heaven, my unborn baby). My brain would get stuck in a loop, my stomach clenching up so tight that eating and sleeping became next to impossible. That was when Cal would really start to worry, and I'd find myself adding to my ever-growing list of things to feel guilty over.

"I spoke with our realtor yesterday," he went on. "It seems that the new owners are hoping to move in next month. However, they say they would be happy to wait a bit longer, if we need more time finding ourselves a place to live."

Gnawing softly on the right corner of my lower lip, I asked, "What did y'all tell t'realtor?"

"I said we appreciate the offer. The couple has been very generous in letting us stay here. But I do think we should get the ball rolling soon. Somewhere within the next two weeks. If things don't work out with my parents, we can just stay in Georgia. Get ourselves a quaint little cottage further out in the country. A place that's cool in the summer, warm in the winter. I've already begun looking into it. There are several apartments, even a few properties, for rent nearby. Once I've gone back to work and saved a little money, I'll hire someone to help you."

"So long as ya done promise I kin meet an approve em first."

Cal raised his hand, his palm facing me, and with a smile that lit his light brown eyes so that they appeared almost golden, he replied, "I done promise. In the meantime, I'll transfer the most essential of our possessions to a storage locker. We'll sell the rest, and donate what we don't. Your friend Sherry has offered to store your potter's wheel, and all of your molds, in her garage. Once we're settled in our new home, I'll have our things sent to our new address. It all depends where we end up. We may not be able to take everything."

I sighed. "That sounds like it'd be awful expensive. B'sides, I hardly sees myself takin up ceramics agin any time soon. Maybe not eva. Be a waste of money t'have thins shipped back and forth iffen they's jus gonna sit around, collectin dust. Do us both one betta iffen ya'd jus toss it all."

"I'm not going to do that. Honey, just because you aren't interested in your art right now doesn't mean you never will be. And who knows?" He winked. "It might be sooner than you think. When that day comes, you'll be glad I didn't let you throw away all your supplies."

This was not his first attempt to talk me out of doing something he thought of as reckless. I had to appreciate that. "Do what ya want," I relented. "Don't feel like fightin wid ya ova it."

He grinned, triumphant. "Nor I with you." He proceeded to reach across the table, maneuvering his hands around the napkin dispenser. Drawing both of my hands into each of his, he wove his fingers through my own. He raised my hands to his lips, and, bowing his head, began to trail an array of slow, sweet kisses down the backs of each fingertip. He did the same to my palms, tickling them, his mouth tracing lazy, delicate circles over the soft skin. Any annoyance or frustration I'd been harboring had long since receded, lost forever in the precious moment I now found myself experiencing with my husband. His lips brushed delicately over my knuckles, and, try as I might, I couldn't help but wince; so raw and cracked were my hands that the skin was prone to split and bleed if I didn't apply lotion every time I washed my hands. If I commented on how ugly or gross they were, Cal was quick to contradict me, saying that he loved my hands, even as he remembered to treat them with the utmost gentleness and care.

Letting go my hands, he nodded toward my not quite empty plate. I followed his gaze, and I'm sure as I am that Jesus came into the world on a pile of hay rather than some big, fancy bed that my husband's eyes never left my face. Not once. Not til I'd done him proud, and polished off the contents of my breakfast.


End file.
